Scrap wood garden angel

Hi,  I haven't blogged in awhile but I wanted to share the garden angel I made recently. (hubby did help a bit too) People have asked how I made it, so I wanted to post it here where it was accessible.  I found one on Pinterest I really liked and gave it my own spin. 

Here is the finished angel althought I haven't found the perfect halo yet, and may dry brush the angel white... I haven't decided yet.

I already had the shutter.  It is approximately 4' tall and 15" wide. I used old scrap boards I had on hand.  The bottom wing board is an old piece of trim that has a design.  I thought it might look a little like feathers.  The flowers are metal, in a rusty bucket, but you can make yours to hold a wreath, small bucket of flowers, a heart, etc.  Hubby helped me drill holes up into the shutter sides to insert rebar so it wouldn't sit directly on the ground, but you can skip that step if you like.

I laid my shutter on my work bench and laid boards underneath it where the wings would be.  I decided about how long I wanted the top wing board, and cut if off, rounding the ends a little with the jigsaw.  I then made each of the other two boards a little shorter than the one above it.  I used rockers off an old broken rocking chair for the arms, but you can use a board and just shape them a bit.  Once the wings were cut I turned them over, and screwed a piece of thin wood lath across all three to hold them together.

When it came time to make the head I used a small bucket and traced a circle leaving room below it on the board to make shoulders to attach the head to the top of the shutter. 

I then put a screw down thru the top of the shoulder into the shutter body. 

One tip:  When drawing your head and shoulders make them proportionate to the shutter body so they are too narrow or wide, and look like they match the body size.

I'd love to hear from you if you make one, and found these directions helpful.  Now have fun and be creative.

Myra

I've decided to add a couple more pics.  One will show how I attached the head/shoulders to the shutter body and the other shows how I reinforced the wings by securing them together.

I hope the additional pics help.

Flea Market Gardening

If you aren't already a fan I urge you to check out the Flea Market Gardening website. 

You will find lot of ideas for cheap and easy ways to bring character to your garden next year.

Stop over and check it out.  And if you use facebook, they have a page on there also.

http://www.fleamarketgardening.org/

Enjoy!

Myra

Ziplining, repurposing, caving, and miscellaneous

I know I've neglected my blog lately.  There is so much more to do in the summer that I want to be outside as much as possible. So, here are a few things we've been doing the last few weeks.

Hubby and I went to see his brother who was visiting from Europe.  He and his wife have a house on Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Road trips are the perfect opportunity for adventure.  Once we knew when we were going I started looking for routes to take, and opportunites for adventure along each route.  I had been wanting to check out LaRoche castle near Cincinnati for years.  So that became stop number one. One man built this castle.  He was 84 when he laid his last stone.

From Cincinnati we drove to Branson, Missouri to zipline. (We passed the St. Louis arch on the way) We have both been wanting to zipline. We went to an obstacle course last year, which kicked my butt, but this time we just wanted to zip.  We both loved it!  It was in the mountains, and we did four ziplines.

 

Golly I hate having my picture taken.  This picture was my motivation to start dieting :) 

We also visited Meramac Caverns in Missouri.  I had been there as a kid, but Mark had never been.  We both love caves and we enjoyed this one.

We've been working on the cornzebo.  We finally got a table made for the cornzebo.  Here are a couple pics... We made the table top out of old deck boards that someone had thrown out for the trash.  These were 14' long. I wanted a 5' round table, so we cut 11 five foot pieces, scribed a circle on the back, numbered the boards and used the jigsaw to cut them out.  We put supports on the bottom, and used this old terracotta tile as the base.

We sanded it good, added a tiny bit of green to the existing red, and gray paint, and then I added some oak stain to make the raw wood look less dry and weathered.

 

I think it fits perfect.  There is plenty of room to walk around it, but it's close enough to pull the chairs up to the table to eat if we want to eat out there.

 

 

Can't get enough time with these two.  They're "Granny's" helpers.  I love being a granny.

 

 

I found this little guy while watering.  I love unexpected surpirses.

 

I hope you're having fun.  Until next time.

 

Myra