Glass Garden Balls DIY

By special and numerous requests, here you are, the tutorial for my glass garden balls ....originally posted in 2013!

My blog header shows my love of cobalt blue glass

 and I've added that love of blue glass to my garden art.

Years ago my family got me a big blue gazing ball for my 

daisy flowerbed and I knew I wanted more, more, more! 

But hey, those gazing balls are not cheap and they are surprisingly fragile. 

Basically they are just giant glass Christmas balls. 

And they break if they fall over.What to do?

My first idea involved a bowling ball and lots of glass half marbles from the Dollar Store. 

I got this idea from the Garden Junk forum over at Garden Web.

 I used Silicone II adhesive and  did a bit at a time, only glueing the gems

 on top and let the adhesive dry a bit the turning the ball and doing another little area.

 If you try to do the sides the gems will fall off before the adhesive sticks well, so slowly slowly.

 I LOVE how this came out!!! 

The bowling ball cost me $4 at a thrift store and I used about 6 bags of glass marbles.

The Silicone II cost $4.

 My first blue glass garden ball for about $14. I was hooked!

I snagged this round glass light fixture for 25 cents and knew it would be my next ball project.

 Dollar Store half marbles and garage sale finds gave me the blue glass I needed.

I decided to go with this Amazing Goop silicone adhesive because it was CHEAP.

 It is basically the same formula as  the Silicone II. The total cost on this 

pretty ball is less than $10.

This is definitely an OUTSIDE project since all the glues I've mentioned are incredibly smelly. 

Even outside I have a fan blowing across my work area to avoid the fumes. 

I settled on my front porch and started gluing. Put a small blob of glue on each

 individual marble, you do not have to goop it on. Smear a layer on the topmost 

area of your big ball and put your marble in place.

 I twist them a bit to make sure they stick together.

IMPORTANT! 

The adhesive does not set up instantly so you will have to do small areas

 of your ball and let it dry for several hours then turn it over to do

 the other sides. If you go too fast and  skip this step  you'll have

 glass marbles falling off all over the place! 

In this project patience will reward you with a beautiful art piece.

And done!!

Here she is (of course she's a lady! LOL!) nestled in a soft bed of creeping Jenny. 

A hot pink petunia will join her soon.

 I love the bright blue glass against my blue deck railings and house color.

Oooh ahhh!

And here is the first bowling ball I did 20 years ago!

 She's looking pretty good for her years.

Since then I have glued glass gems to lamp gloves, plastic Christmas balls, 

styrofoam craft balls, soft balls, plastic balls from Dollar Tree and even a hampster ball!

I am always looking for more round balls to decorate for my garden!

Pallet Boards and Nursery Tree Pots = Vintage Style Planters on a Budget!

Gardening season is almost here and I was eagerly looking for some big vintage style wooden planters for my garden.

Dang! Big planters are SPENDY!

So look what we did...

Here's our solution using FREE wood salvaged from pallets and really cheap tree pots from our local nursery.

This 23 gallon planter is 24" across and 14" high. It was only $6 and

 it is plenty big enough for loads of flowers or veggies.

But yikes! It was ugly.

But here it is NOW.

Oooh aaaah!

It has just the perfect vintage vibe I was hoping for!

Look at this lovely FREE wood we salvaged from old pallets. 

We did not have to pull the pallets apart. Some of them were already falling apart and the others we just cut between the support boards. Two old pallets gave us got plenty of lumber pieces long enough for this project. 

Ahem. The Welding Man cut them to length with his big manly saw.

The boards are a mix of fir and cedar and have not been chemically treated, so the sawdust was not a hazard.

For this project we decided to go under the rim around the top of the planter. We laid out a few boards  and marked them before cutting off any of the ends that had nails sticking out.

Laying the planter on its side, we fastened the boards with a slight gap between them at the top because of the angle on the pot. We totally eyeballed the spacing so it isn't perfect. Then we used my favorite power tool of all time...the handy dandy air powered brad nailer.

 Kachunk! LOVE that brad nailer!

Ahhhh! Loving how this project is coming together As you can see the brads are sticking through to the inside of the plastic. The ends are easily bent down by hand or with a pair of pliers. If you cut them off you lose some of the fastening power of the brads and the boards could come loose.

 

The cost for these two vintage style beauties? $12 total for both of the pots. The pallet wood was free and we already had the tools and the brads.

We didn't even have to sand the boards!

I like them alot! 

Tomorrow I will do a  bit of dry brushing to the boards with the turquoise blue paint from the deck and maybe a bit of white. Don't know yet if I want to paint the black rims at the tops. I'll let you know and post photos if I do.

Don't you love it when an idea becomes a project and it works and it's just so darn CHEAP?