Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Yard Tweaking Going On

 
Just thought I'd throw a couple of things that I have been working on in here. 
 
 
No, It's not finished.  That's why there are spaces.  My Son finally gave me his contribution the other night so I am working on it.  Freedonia (you have to be a Marx Bros fan to understand that one) and I'm doing Yosemite since when I escape that is usually where I end up.  I think there will be space for one more sign after that.  Still no clue as to what that will be.
 
I bought the boards at Home Depot.  They have hardwood boards in 4" x whatever length you like sizes. Then I used my wood burner and burnt them.  The lettering came from my MS Word program -I just printed them as huge as I could.   Used an old method on transfer -  rubbed my pencil on the back of the paper and then traced the words with a pen.  Leaves an impression and a bit of the carbon from the pencil behind.  When I was done I had my Husband cut the arrow points in then I washed the signs with different colors (a bit of water and paint) and sprayed them with a sealer after I put them up. 
 
Put only one screw in the sign into the pole so I could tweak them on different slants.  I may have to add an additional screw later as the birds who land on the signs, so they can get in the bird bath in front, are a bit on the plump side and some of the signs end up facing the ground by the end of the day.  Seriously need diets for the birds.
 
Just a note here on the bird bath in front of the sign - I found a HUGE pot and put that by the sign, filled it with dirt and then put another pot inside that was the exact size of my bird bath topper.  Filled around it with dirt and put in some 'tunias.    The pot that holds the bird bath is higher than the original pot so that when I lift off the bird bath to clean it (which I obviously didn't do before this picture) I don't damage the flowers around it.



 
I wish I'd saved the before picture for the chair.  It had yellow and orange plaid on the seat and on the back.   I paid a whole $5 for it at a local garage sale. The rectangle that has the flowers painted on it was the original back and was stapled under the fabric.  I just cleaned it up and painted some bright white daisies on it.  Originally I took the whole puppy apart, had my husband put a screen from the front to the back to hold the cocoa form and sprayed it blue (black was too strong).  
I bought two of the cocoa forms since there wasn't one that would fit my strange shape and kind of mushed (a gardening term :P ) into place .  Since I knew that this would spend a lot of time in the shade I put in coleus, a red one and a variegated one.  The only thing I would have done differently would be to add the additional lining of plastic inside to help retain the water. 
 
Happy Gardening