Garden Grow: Chandelier

The dollar store had some solar lights for.... a dollar...duh... I painted them, popped the heads off the stands and then used poster putty to stick them inside the "candle sticks" of this chandelier I got from the thrift store for $8. Has a cool effect :) Tricky to get a photo of though.

Garden Grow: Dresser to Kitchenette

I found this dresser for $8 

I painted it. 

Then my aunt had a good idea about turning that spot with the missing drawer into a fire pit or something but we already had an idea for that, but it inspired me to do a spot for drinks! So my hubby used his power tools and cut the top off, flipped it, nailed it back down and I painted over the whole thing. Add a bin and you've got a place to plop some ice and beverages for your backyard party.  

Garden Grow: Outdoor Fountain

I found a marble lamp stand at the thrift store: 

And so basically if you remove the wiring, there is already anice hole drilled down the middle for water to flow up, making a great pedestal for the base. So my first attempt, I used a plastic container painted copper, punched a hole in it and screwed it to the top. It looked good!

But as soon as you turned on the water, the weight was too much and it drooped. So sad. 

So I got a new top, a jello mold. My hubby had to drill it and then we filed some grooves around the edge so the flow would go the way we wanted. Also, adding some rocks to the inside eased the pumping a bit. Success!

Garden Grow: Watering With Wine Bottles

You probably noticed the wine bottles in my last post and are wondering what the heck those are there for. Well I saw the idea on pinterest, which led me to this site that talks about using a wine bottle for water plants. Simple and rather ingenius. It is so dry here and I have loads of wine bottles not being used. There is no quick way to recycle them around here so this method turned out to be a great use for them AND it worked! I still water once a day but if I notice a plant needing a little help or if one is naturally more thirsty, this helps keep the balance. It keeps my plants pretty happy. All I did was fill the bottle with water and then plunge it into the dirt, it stayed up just fine on it's own. I thought it might look trashy with all those wine bottles but wine bottles seem to be intrinsically classy lend a fun touch to the box. 

Garden Grow: Firepit

My husband the ham helped me do this one :) 

What a buff and helpful fella! Basically i got this big ole hunk of rusty pipe for free after making friends with a junk collector. We dug a hole in the ground and buried it partially in that, filled it with the dirt we had removed, stuck a bunch of rocks in the bottom and called it good. We'd like to eventually decorate it a little more than that but for now, it's functional :) Which is great because we have a LOT of debris to burn off in this yard. 

Garden Grow: Mosaic

This thing was the biggest pain in the arse to do. I didn't enjoy doing it a bit and in the end I didn't get what a wanted, which was a table top. 

I ran out of both time and supplies so I did the best with what I had and its now a pretty piece in the yard. Which I won't complain on at all, a lot of people seem to really like it. That or they don't want to hear me whine about how annoying it was to make >. > could be.... Meh, it's pretty. Nuff said. 

Garden Grow: Plant Box

Our first new addition to the backyard! The plant box for the garden. We found a tutorial online (pretty easy, it is just a box after all) chose the paint and put it together. I wanted a bit of a shabby chic thing so I sanded down the painting (first a coat of white, then a coat of blue and then a final coat of spring green) we did and then painted it over with a clear topcoat for protection. 

This is me attempting some moss graffiti but it never worked out, the air is just too dry to keep up with here, especially during the summer. But it was worth a shot!

It's got tomatoes, peppers, brussel sprouts and cucumber in there as seedlings and then I planted the seeds of leek, carrots, basil and broccoli. I have never done this before so I am eager to see how it turns out!

Garden Makeover!

This is my grandmother's backyard (with a couple of things we bought to start the makeover)

As you can see it's a rather ambitious project. We'd really like to be able to have friends over to hang out. Our living room won't fit more than three people comfortably so this is the next option. I've already completed some things and will be posting about them over the next few weeks.