Epic Fail…Mosaic Bird Bath

I make things that don’t go well all the time.  Usually they are little projects, but this one is really a good one.  And I have been working on it for months!

This is a bird bath, all concrete, weighing approximately 4000 pounds. I bought it for $10 at an auction.

It was a standard garden variety (pun intended) concrete bird bath with chippy white paint and some old mosaic squares falling off the bowl.

I scraped off all those mosaic tiles and all the loose paint, then used two colors spray paint and randomly painted the inside of the bowl.

I added some flat marbles to the center and then just started doing circles around the center area in a pattern of sorts.  I was determined I would only use marbles I had on hand but ended up buying one package of shades of blue marbles.

And the bonus is that I used up a big Ziploc bag full of marbles.

I used E6000 to attach the marbles. 

E6000 is a really strong glue that will hold almost anything…

Here’s the nearly finished product…

I thought about grouting the bowl, but decided to try my hand at a resin to keep it waterproof and to help it survive the winter freezes.

It was going to be wonderful…but when the resin was poured on, it hardened almost immediately.  So, I was left with this…

I guess I should have skipped the resin…bummer!

The resin is no longer clear because the bubbles and ridges let water underneath…Anyone have any ideas on how to make this better?  I am thinking a chisel and hours of work or offering it free on Craigslist!

I may be linking to these great parties!

A giveaway, a workbench and a clean(er) garage

I won a $50 Home Depot gift card (and some awesome outdoor cleaning supplies) from Stacy at Not JUST a Housewife and I knew what I wanted to buy with it before it came in the mail!

Home Depot had this wood workbench for $69!  I saw Karen here at Sew Many Ways talked about this bench so I went to the Home Depot looking for it, checked it out and it was perfect!  First I had to make room for it…

So, on this beautiful day, I started to clean out my garage.  I swept up this pile of stuff…yep, that’s a frog mummy and that’s entirely fake money.  Lots of flat marbles and a vintage tootsie roll.  That was just the highlights…

So anyway, I digress…I dry walled one who side of the garage (with the help of a friend who got me started), replaced the insulation, added some insulation and painted it all up.  Eventually I want to dry wall the entire garage so I can work in there year round.

I gave away tons of stuff, sold some stuff and cleared off all sorts of shelves.

I found this wooden crate on wheels that my son had some play guns and toys stored in and cleaned it out and put all my wood scraps in the crate.  It rolls and is larger than the Rubbermaid tote the wood scraps were falling out of!

I reinforced the bottom of the crate and oiled the wheels and stacked the wood inside.

May not be pretty but it did the trick!!

Here’s the finished project with the new wall behind it and everything stored neatly.

And here is the workbench, I hauled it home from the store in the back of my Toyota Corolla…it’s seven feet long.  It comes out of the box and unfolds and is ready to use!  I painted the horizontal surfaces (with paint left over from the walls) to protect them.

The blue light in the pic above is just a plug-in swag I found 80% off at Hobby Lobby.  It was $11!  Works perfectly…I screwed a cup hook into the shelf above the work bench. I also have a stylish drop light for more lighting if needed…bet you want one too, huh?  So anyway, it may not be gorgeous, but it is a great work space for me with lots of room to create!  And hey, did I mention it was only $19 for me???  Oh, plus tax of course!

Some of my first projects on my new bench…

More about these later…

I will be linking to some of these great parties!

Decorating my new office

Back in October while I was on my Connecticut vacation, my office moved to a new building.  It is my fourth office in the almost two years I have worked here.  The fun part was that I got to decorate it all my self.  It came with cream colored walls and one mauve wall'; I put my ginormous bulletin board on the that mauve wall (to hide the color). 

 

I moved a few pictures over from my old office, like the one you see in the mirror above I made from paint chips a few years ago.  You can go here to see that project.

I now have a nice bookcase, but very few books to put in in so I organized it with baskets and of course have quite a few things to show off on those shelves!

Here’s the paint chip wall hanging in its corner, and the birds nest wall hanging I found at Goodwill for $3.  I was thrilled and it is in excellent shape! 

Sam got me these two canvases for Christmas (he gave them to me in October) and the mirror is a  $1 thrift store find.

I love this saying….

Here’s the birds nest from Goodwill and above it is a canvas that I Mod Podged a printed 8.5 x 11 paper onto.  It turned out nicely. 

I made this chalkboard from a pretty picture frame I found at Goodwill…really I do shop other places, but love the thrift stores.

I thought it looked kinda plain so I added some grey and blue flowers, wool of course! 

The lamp was only $15 at the Salvation Army store in town, perfect for the desk.  I like to have all sorts of inspirational quotes and pictures, I do spend 9 hours a day in this spot, so it may as well suit me!  It has been fun to put it all together…

I am linking to these great parties…

Thrifted Mosaic Plant Table

Cleaning out the garage and finishing all my “to do” projects is one of my goals this summer.  This table has been in the garage since the beginning of last summer. 

When I bought it (did I mention I only paid $1 for it??) at the church yard sale, it had a ragged bamboo top that was falling apart, but the metal base was solid. 

I sprayed it with Rustoleum rusty metal primer and it sat for a long time.  Then I used spray paint left over from the metal glider (blue of course) to give it several light coats.  Meanwhile I made the glass tile mosaic top on a 12 x 12 tile board.  And I kept moving it from one surface to another out in the garage…

This past weekend, when it was in excess of 100 degrees outside of course, I put it all together.  I had to use a board underneath the tile (because I wasn’t sure if I could screw through the tile board and I was afraid of breaking a tile) to attach it to the base.  I glued the tile board onto the wooden board and screwed the wood to the metal frame base.

I am trying to stage my projects better, photographically speaking. So I just have to tell on myself.  I was working on this post and noticed one of the photos had some underpants “delicates” on a hanger in the background!  Lovely! Hey, I was just conserving energy during this heat blast we have been having and drying most of my clothes outside on a hanger instead of running the dryer.  At least I noticed it before I posted!

I am linking to these great parties!

Flower Wall Art

I have been having physical therapy for tendonitis in my shoulder…last week my therapist was talking about a craft party she had been to and she showed me a really cute wall hanging that one of her friends made. I hadn’t seen this project before, but I found this on Pinterest which led me here and I made my own version!

I added lots of shades of blues, some green and a splash of pink all on a brown background. I used scrapbook paper, but I think it would look great too with fabric (great destashing project!).   I tried to Mod Podge the petals onto the canvas but it didn’t stick too well, so I used craft glue.  I did use the Mod Podge to coat it all when I was done...there were spots of craft glue which were obvious.

Anyway, I only have one problem now…where to hang it!

I am linking to these great parties!