Indoor Bamboo Fountain

I had just made my own indoor bamboo fountain few months ago. I'm not really planning to make one but almost bought those fountain I always see from our local Walmart store. Turned out it was a blessing in disguise I hadn't got one as it uses batteries and I wanted a fountain I could plug in. That way, I don't have to worry about repeatedly buying any batteries as I want my fountain to be continuously running.

And so I decided to make my own instead as I also likes tinkering stuff I'm interested into. I have been browsing on Ebay and looking for a water pump. And so I found a water pump, with the size I wanted, got it and made my very first fountain.

So how to make an indoor bamboo fountain?
Here's what you will need and it wasn't that hard at all. You will enjoy making it as much as I did.

You will be needing:
*water pump
*glass bowl
*stones for decoration
*plant such as a lucky bamboo (optional)
*saw and a knife
*screwdriver
*drinking straw

Making the bamboo fountain:

1. Using the saw, saw about 4 to 5 inches of bamboo that would be flat on both ends. You can also add more inches depending on how tall you want your fountain to be. But you would just want it right according to your glass bowl's size, you don't want an overly tall bamboo on a small bowl.

2.Saw another bamboo about 2 to 3 inches long which has flat ends on one end and slanted on the other.

3. Now, using a screwdriver or a knife, gently poke a hole close to the far end of the second piece of bamboo. Make the hole about half an inch from the bamboo node. The drinking straw has to go through here. Gently and carefully carve the hole until the straw would fit in there. Refer to the photo below and look closely at the bamboo piece that has a hole in it.

You also need to saw a third bamboo piece for your plant. Make this third one a little longer than the two pieces of bamboo you first made. There should be a node on one end and slanted on the other end. Your lucky bamboo plant will be place here.

4. Rinse the decorative stones. You might want to use few drops of hand soap on the water to clean the stones off dust particles. This will give you clear water and shiny stones for your indoor fountain. Set the stones aside and empty the glass bowl, you don't want the stones there yet.

5. Now, get your water pump ready and connect the straw to the water pump. Then put the first piece of bamboo over the straw. The straw should be a little longer than the bamboo over it.

6. Connect the second piece of bamboo to the straw.

7. The water pump I had used has a suction on the bottom. I don't know if all water pump has it or it is just the kind I got. This was the first time I bought one and had made an indoor fountain. But if what you got has one, that's good. That's will make sure that the pump will stick to its place.

8. Let's go to the glass bowl now. Place the water pump in there. And put the third bamboo piece on the side. And this time you can go on placing the decorative stones on the bowl. Gently place them and used the stones to cover and hide the water pump so it won't show up on your finished homemade indoor bamboo fountain.

And the finished fountain below.

Tips on where to get the decorative stones and bowl? I got my 2 bags of decorative stones and the glass bowl from our local 99 Cents store. So in case you have one in your area, you might want to visit there and look for the items. The lucky bamboo plant, I got it from an Asian market which is 99 cents each piece.

What Is Walis Tingting?

So what is walis tingting?

A walis tingting is the Tagalog word for broomstick made from coconut midribs. The word "walis" meaning broom, and tingting which is the midribs of the coconut leaves used to create the broomstick.

The broomstick has been a part of Filipino life, walis tingting would be seen used into yard sweeping and I can't count how many times I had used this broom myself. And do you wanna know something fun? The broomstick making! Yes, one can create the broomstick instead of having a trip to the market and purchasing one. I had memories making one when I was a kid with my lola (grandma) and my mom, but most of the time it was my grandmother making the broomstick while she was living with us in the farm.

And to make the walis tingting, you would need three things:
* a knife
* coconut midribs
* tie

And of course you would also need to spend some time scraping off the midribs to gather enough of it for your broom.

                                                              (image credit: depositlyrics.com)
The steps are just simple. First, scrape off the midribs from the coconut leaves, set aside all the gathered midribs and when you have enough, tie it all together and you would have a homemade broomstick. And don't forget to cut about less than 1 ft. from the soft ends for your broom to work well, or else you would have some hard times sweeping the yard as the soft ends can hardly sweep leaves or any debris from your yard.

Here is some broomstick making photos worth looking at that I found online:

Broomstick Making Photos


And if you want to read about the legend of the coconut tree, you can visit and read the coconut legend I wrote from Hubpages :)
The Legend Of Coconut Tree