Great Planter with Super Mario Bros Decoration! 2026

Great Planter with Super Mario Bros Decoration, a planter with Mario or question mark blocks is not a completely original idea, however, I did not find constructions that really gave life to the block in three dimensions.

That was my goal for this project.

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Step 1: Materials

Materials:

• 1 12″x8′ cedar board (box walls)
• Kiln drying after 2″x4″ treatment (KDAT – For bricks)
• 4 2″x2″x42″ Pressure Treated Yellow Pine Baluster
• 1 6-foot cedar board
• Red paint for exteriors
• Yellow exterior paint
• Black exterior paint for base color
• 2 Spray Cans on Primer Filler
• Gray spray paint (optional to attach the legs to the concrete)
• Roller
• Outdoor screws
• 150-220 grit sandpaper (or similar)
• Wood glue

Note: KDAT can be difficult to find and will likely require a special order. Some other options may include:

• Use wood with regular pressure messages, but it must be dried before painting, which can take months.
• Use another cedar wood board, but it may be difficult to smooth.
• Use regular kiln dried wood, use a paint treatment, but you will need to use screws in each brick instead of glue.
• Use a much more expensive exterior wood like those listed here.

Electrical tools/equipment:

• Table saw
• Router
• 3D printer (not necessary if you can cut the question mark by hand)
• Miter saw (also not necessary since all the cuts could be made while watching the table saw, but it helps)
• Clamps (corner, regular and long)
• Brushes and rollers
• Belt sander

Step 2: Cut and assemble the walls

Cut the four side walls from the single 12″ cedar board (11.25″ actual width).

Next, cut the “Base Frame” from the 2x2 pressure treated yellow pine balusters. These cuts will need to be cut at 45 degrees. Finally cut the bottom boards of the cedar fence board.

Now use a fence board as a guide to separate the base frame from the bottom of the planter wall (see photo). This will ensure that when you place the bottom it is level. Also make sure the base frame pieces are centered on the walls. The longer pieces should be shorter than the side walls to account for the shorter sides that screw on the inside. In my case, one side of the cedar was smooth while the other was rough, so I made sure the face had the smooth side facing out to avoid having to sand lightly.

Step 3: Assemble the Planter Base

I added an optional wood glue and then pressed the walls to fassemble a box. Then pre-drill 3 pilot holes in each corner before screwing them all the way in and removing the clamps. The joint is a simple butt joint with the shorter sides on the inside of the pot. The screws will be covered by the bricks, so make sure they are flush with the wood or recessed a little.

Then I turned the box over to put the bottom boards in place. They are often tight due to the imperfect nature of fence board edges. I suggest placing them so they are resting on each other (see photo) before pressing them down to place them. Then pre-drill and screw them through the base frame. I was pretty liberal with the screws placing them 4″ apart.

Next, drill drainage holes in the bottom of the pot. I drilled a couple of 1/4″ holes. Finally, I sanded the joints with a belt sander and 80 grit sandpaper because my wood had a slight warp and the joints were smooth so the "bricks" would roll (see photo).

Step 4: Cut the bricks

Cut the 2″x4″ so that each side is only 1/2″ thick. In the initial photo, the board was cut directly in half. But I found it to be too thick, so I re-cut each half to shave it down to 1/2″. With my 10″ table saw I couldn't cut in one pass, so I had to flip it over to complete the cut. Once you have the 1/2″ board, you can begin cutting the individual bricks.

You will need:

• 18 Full Bricks (3.5″x5 11/32″)
• 12 Side Bricks (3.5″x2.5″)

But I would cut some extra in case I find defects.

Once they are cut, it is really satisfying to make a test design. The space between bricks is 3/8″ (or .375″). But I ended up spotting the space for mine pretty easily. Finally, miter a 45 degree cut from 6 of the full bricks and 6 of the side bricks. Make sure the longest side (which should be the rounded top side) is still the original length of the brick and you are only cutting enough material to create the miter cut.

Once again I placed the test layout with the new miter cuts in place and measured the center square to be right at 11.25″

Step 5: Finish building the bricks

To complete the bricks we first have to round all the hard edges left on the face using a Router so that all sides are rounded.

Next, I leaned a belt sander on its side and quickly smoothed all the top faces of the bricks with 240-grit sandpaper. This should take less than 10 seconds per brick. After smoothing the bricks, you can glue all the pieces together with some joints and hold them together with corner clamps, although in my case I used to make a single corner clamp and a basic clamp to ensure it fit evenly. You will have 6 games that always match a full brick and a side brick.

Once the corners are glued and dry, you can round the corners where the pieces meet and then make another test layout with your new brick wrap.

Step 6: Painting the bricks

Nothing unexpected here... I just used a primer filler to help build a slightly smoother surface and fill in any small grain textures. I then LIGHTLY sanded each brick by hand (again about 5 seconds per brick) but making sure not to sand the primer. Finally, I sprayed the painted red bricks with some Rust-Oleum.

Step 7: Paint the box

First, lightly and quickly sand the outside of the box with 150-grit sandpaper to polish the surface smooth for painting. Something I would suggest doing differently, if you plan on gluing the bricks, is to place pieces of painters tape behind each brick. Then, once it's primed and painted, you can peel off the tape to reveal the raw wood to glue on. For this reason, it doesn't need to be the entire shape of the brick, just a middle section.

Then I applied some primer. While it was drying, I brushed a coat of waterproofing sealant onto the inside of the box. I'm not sure if this is necessary or would help extend the life of the planter, but I figured it couldn't hurt. Once the primer dried, I used over my dark paint (Rust-oleum Metallic Oil Rubbed).

As you can see in my last photo, if you don't use the painters tape method and decide to use glue, you will need to sand parts of the paint behind each brick to get a good wood.

Step 8: Fixing the bricks

Start holding and gluing wooden bricks by leaving them pressed for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Once all the clamp-accessible bricks were glued together, I had to start improvising. But it only requires objects with a little weight and a flat surface.

An optional, but nice touch was to paint the top edge of the box so that it feels like a continuation of the brick (This will be visible in the photos of future steps because I forgot to photograph it at this stage).

Step 9: Create the question block

The question mark panel was designed in Tinkercad and will require a large printer capable of printing an 11.25″ square. I have the popular CR-10 and it barely fits in the bed. There are 2 versions of the block bottom (FULL and THIN). This is because I saved on print time by printing a full version and using trimmed PVC as a spacer (see in the next step). But if you prefer to print the full version as a single piece, you have that option. Although the background of the block was printed in yellow, it was not the yellow I wanted. So I decided to spray it with Rust-oleum's Golden Sunset paint.

First I suggest putting SOME painters tape inside the question mark slot because we are going to tape it in place and plastic to plastic would be a better option. I had to reuse the primer which made a great print look terrible. Once it dried I had to sand the primer with 220 grit sandpaper. Then once it dried I hice everything again, I did it 2 more times.

Finally, once it was smooth I hit it with a decent coat of the gold paint.

Download Files.

Step 10: Attach the question block

This is an optional approach and I'm sure there are better ways but as I mentioned in the previous step, I had a 1/4″ thick PVC border so I decided to print the question mark block thinner (to save printing time) then paint and screw the border directly to the box. This way you could just glue the question mark into the cutout, leaving you with a screwless finish. Also paste the question mark at the same time. If you do this don't use the edge, you can screw directly through the question mark block or find a good adhesive for wood and plastic.

Step 11: Cutting and fixing the legs

Using the same 2″x2″ pine baluster from the previous steps, I sprayed some gray I had to further blend into my concrete. I cut the legs about 3″ tall, but it all depends on preference.

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