Creative Gardening: Ornamentation

Lawn and Garden Gnomes are always a good idea!

An antique wooden ladder becomes the perfect trellis, courtesy of my Mom!

A pair of old ceramic salt and pepper shakers and a glass spire decorate a potted plant in my backyard.

As the last installment in the Creative Gardening series (sad, I know :P ) I would like to showcase some of my favorite ways to decorate your garden. A person can go to any big box store and buy all manner of plastic type things to put in their garden, but it's so much more creative to do something out of the ordinary, besides, some of that stuff is so gag inducing (however Perry does enjoy those kitschy lawn gnomes as seen above). Recycle a kitchen pot that's ready for the trash and plant flowers in it, make a mosaic piece out of an old bowling ball, re-purpose old mattress springs as an one of a kind trellis...the possibility's are endless!

My Mom always adds tons of interest to her garden and yard with unique yard ornaments. She's so creative with her outdoor decorating. Almost every Christmas, or for my Mom's b-day, I get her something for her garden. One of my all time favorite places to get her something special for the yard is Uncommon Goods. They have a great selection of fun and recycled yard art, outdoor lighting, and even unique gardening tools and seeds.

Rock yard snails from Uncommon Goods

I had to add this bit of yard art below I found online a while ago. It's a trellis made out of bike parts from Crafting a Green World. I love it!

Want another nifty and thrifty yard ornament idea? How about these ladybugs made from old bowling balls from Birds and Blooms. I think I might have a thing for bowling ball art.

Creative Gardening: Mosaics

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials...according to the definition on Wikipedia. :) I have always been fond of mosaics, especially in the garden. The above and below pictured mosaic mushrooms were one of the first project tutorials I posted on here, and people loved them as much as I did. These mushrooms reside in my Mom's garden and she is quite fond of them as well!

After finding my Grandfather's old bowling ball a couple of years ago I started (but never finished :P) this tutorial on a mosaic bowling ball for the garden, pictured below. However, Marisa's lovely finished mosaic bowling ball is pictured below my un-finished version. If you have an old bowling ball I highly recommend this project, it's cheap, relatively easy, and looks great hiding amongst plants.

Marisa's finished piece!

My Mom made the unique mosaic birdbath pictured below with a terra cotta pot and saucer, strong hold glue, flat marbles, broken blue glass pieces, and grout.

Mosaic birdbath

Want to create your own mosaics for your garden, or even house ? You'll need a couple of things:

• Grout
• Broken glass, flat backed marbles, tiles, small round mirrors, buttons, plastic charms, etc!
• A Sponge (for cleaning the grout off of the tiles, marbles, etc.)
• Water

Mosaic is easy, very therapeutic, and a great way to use old broken plates or glasses if you have any!