Cement Garden Balls

I made one of these cement “gazing” balls (you can’t really gaze into a cement ball, but you can gaze at it!) last summer and wanted a few more to put with it…

I had been collecting glass light globes from auctions (my brother has an auction company) and the Habitat for Humanity Restore in Columbia.  After last summer’s project, I decided to find some that were made of a lighter weight glass.  The most I paid for one was $2.

One warmer January day I decided to mix up the concrete and fill up the globes. 

I put the globes on some bubble wrap in a box and an old wash basin.  After mixing and pouring the concrete I just let them sit for several days.  The first time I made a concrete garden ball I ended up with a zillion (or maybe more) little cuts on my hands.  When it came time to break the glass off, I taped the box lid up so it was a tall extension on the box.

Then I put the hammer through a hole in a tarp, put a glove on my hand and started hammering away!  I broke most of the glass without even looking at the balls.  And the mess stayed inside the box so it wasn’t hard to clean up after I was done.  I had NO cuts on my hands. Yay!!

Two of the globes had a longer “stems” so they are shaped like mushrooms.  I love the way they turned out.  The polka dot one is really cute and the one with the vertical depressions on it is really cool too!

Eventually my plan is to have some of these sitting out with moss growing on them.  If I remember right though, the concrete needs to cure for a bit so  I left them outside today in the rain…seems like I read something about the pH of the cement or something like that.

One of the balls is totally smooth and round…

I probably got too excited about it feeling like spring, I put up the hammock and even laid in it for a bit. 

Milo and the cats helped me with the photo shoot of course!

As always!

This is the one I made last year and the one below is one of the new ones…love the hobnail look!

I might be linking to some of these great parties!