Posted in Projects to Make, Garden Ideas, Garden Tools | 1 Comment »
Garden Tool Vine Supports
August 7th, 2006
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I love when I get ideas from readers. This blog entry was prompted by pictures sent in by Kathy Pfaff of Erie, Pa. She “repurposes” rusted or broken garden tools into vine supports. Click on the pictures and you’ll get a bigger view of a hoe and an edger that were used to support new morning glory vines.
Kathy also sunk the broken ends of two broom sticks into the ground to act as supports for other vines she had growing.
This whole concept of decorating with and/or repurposing garden tools is one that I am actively looking into. Being the avid gardener that I am, the fanatical repurposer and a frugal decorator, garden tools make great “parts” for new projects. Have you done anything with garden tools besides garden with them?
Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
Repurposing Glads
July 30th, 2006 Email the link for this page to a friend!
One of the keys to using what you have and having what you want when you want it, is to “forward-think” a bit. By that, I mean to think about what you may want to be doing, decorating-wise, months into the future (YEAH, RIGHT! Like we all have time for THAT! Ok, try to follow me here.) For instance, I know that, come Easter-time next year, I am going to want to try my hand at naturally-dying eyes. I want to use stuff found in nature to make dyes to color my eggs.
So far, I have been saving onion skins for their color - expecting them to yield an orangish-gold color. This week, I stumbled upon something to save that I would have never given another thought to, had they not gotten wet while sitting on my kitchen counter. I’ll start at the beginning.
The flowers pictured above are glads - given to me as bulbs by my mother this year for Easter (click on the picture above to get a better view of them). I planted them last spring, and this is what they looked like last week. I just LOVE them. So, I was really sad when we had such heavy rains this week that some of them were broken off by the very weight of the raindrops on the flower heads. They were just lying on the ground, next to where they once stood so beautifully.
I brought them inside and put them in a vase on my hutch. (Click on the picture for a bigger view)
Every day I look at them - I think they are just stunning. Yesterday, needing to add more fallen blossoms to the vase, I removed the stems already on display and cleaned them up - plucking off any spent flowers (which had dried on the stems), and trimming stems. I reassembled the arrangement, and back on the hutch it went. Now to clean up the trimmings.
That’s when it hit me. The dried flowers were lying on the counter and they were a DEEP DEEP red now that they were dried. My first thought was that they would make a great addition, color-wise, to some potpourri somewhere. A small drop of water had fallen on one of them while I was freshening the arrangement. That water drop was now this gorgeous color on my counter top. Bingo! These dried glads could be another thing to save that I can try to use to make dye for my eggs! And between now and then, they, in their dried state, will look great in some fall arrangement that I’ll do.
Now, I have not done this before, and I don’t know that it will work. I will find out in the spring. But between now and then, I’ll put these dried flowers to good use in other ways, while they wait out their final color calling. Wish me luck!
Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
Yippee, it’s broken!
July 22nd, 2006 Email the link for this page to a friend!
Okay, okay. So maybe that’s NOT the reaction you have to things you break - especially if those things are family heirlooms, or have sentimental value. But there are things you can do with the “remains”, even if they are. Or maybe you have “broken” things that you aren’t really attached to or that don’t have that much sentimental value, but you’d just rather keep them out of the landfills. This entry is for you! Blog reader Darla Johnson wrote me the following:
“I have quite a few broken tiles. They were from a freecycler and they are in 3 different colors. Any ideas would be qreatly appreciated.”
Good for Darla! Taking the tiles, even without knowing what to do with them at that moment! Now we all have a chance to help her. The ideas I will share with Darla, and you, would work with all kinds of “broken” stuff. Besides the tiles, you could use any of the following things in their “broken” state:
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Shells
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Terra Cotta Pots
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Plates
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Other tableware - cups, bowls, and mugs
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Pottery
- Fill in the blank with something YOU broke!
So, you’ve got your “broken” stuff. What now?
I am not all that wild about doing the mosaic thing (although I know lots of people do, and that definitely is an option). Here are my non-mosaic ideas. If you have some ideas as well, you know what to do! 
* Use the broken pieces in the pots of your house plants as both a mulch and a nice-looking dirt cover.
* Larger broken pieces (like the tiles or some plates) can be used as garden edging. Just dig a small trench in the ground and stand the broken pieces in the trenches, then backfill.
* The water art I talked about in this blog previously (http://www.frugalbydesign.com/blog/2006/06/20/stone-art/) could also be done with some of these other broken pieces, as could a fountain.
* Some broken “stuff” can be broken even more and made into a pathway or put around a bench in a garden instead of stones or pebbles.
* Darla’s tiles may work as stepping stones. Just know that in areas where there is freezing weather, the tiles will break further. This would not bother me, but it may bother someone else.
Okay, there’s a start. What can YOU add to the list?
Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
Frugal Foyer
July 17th, 2006 Email the link for this page to a friend!
Amelio Potter from Erie, Pa. shared a decorating makeover of his foyer with me. His redo is one of the most frugal I have ever seen done. Based on his math, it cost him $20. How did he do THAT? Here’s what he told me (and click on the pictures to get a bigger view):
“It was one of those jobs that cost very little - I used items I had on hand.The only thing that cost anything was a board at the entrance and some cement to fill in a hole in the concrete, plus the blinds. My total investment was $20.00.
The paint was a combination of three half gallons of paint that I had - a blue, green and tan. I mixed them together and got the color you see.
It served two purposes. It didn’t cost me for paint and it eliminated three cans of paint.
The rest of the boards and baskets were stuff I had. The blue tiles on the floor were left over from when I re-did my kitchen. The carpet was a remnant I had. The white paint on the shelf was paint that I had. The accents were stuff from the house - I just walked around and grabbed stuff that had a similar look and feel.”
Thank you so much for sharing!
Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
More Cement Projects
July 8th, 2006 Email the link for this page to a friend!
The cement rock project I wrote about started people mixing! My friend, Charlie Koegel, is making his own cement lawn ornaments. He took a really creative approach to what he used for molds.
For this project, he used two plastic pot saucers - one two inches bigger in diameter than the other. He filled the largest mold with cement - not completely full. He then centered the smaller saucer over the filled saucer and pressed evenly down into the cement. He used a putty knife to scrape away the cement that overflowed. Then, he just waited for it all to dry. He lifted off the top saucer and dumped his cement saucer out of the bottom one. This was so easy, I want to make several of these myself!Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
Shingled Pathway
July 3rd, 2006 Email the link for this page to a friend!
They were a great color combination for this project. They looked fairly natural once I put them down. And speaking of putting them down, the process was very simiar to the walkway.
I weed whacked the overgrowth, laid down many layers of newspaper and then just dropped the shingles down on top of 
the newspaper.The purpose of the newspaper is to provide a weed barrier, but also to decompose into soil under the shingles. Plastic, pieces of carpeting and old sheets or blankets can also be used. Obviously, the plastic won’t decompose into soil. The other two options will, and will take longer than the newspaper would.
I may wish I used one of those instead - we shall see.
Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
Make Your Own Walkway
June 29th, 2006 Email the link for this page to a friend!
Anyway, back to my sidewalk. I wanted to make a small one to start, just to see how hard it was. So I made one that was nine feet long and six feet wide. I put it in leading up to a seating area in my yard, pasing though an arbor. Before I tell you HOW I did it, here’s what it looked like completed: 
And here’s what I bought to make it:
cement: $12.00
cement coloring: $6.00
cement mold $15.00 (Lowe’s)
sand: $1.00 (I buy broken bags at Lowe’s for half price)
I had the arbor up and the bench sitting there. It was all grass between the two - a place that had to be weed-whacked to maintain. I’m on an anti-weed-whacking campaign so….
I was going though the Lowe’s store flyer and saw the mold listed there - I had seen it in other magazines, but hadn’t thought about using one (or even making a walkway) until the ad jumped out at me. I went to the store and got the last one they had. I also got the cement coloring there. There were 6 colors to choose from. The one you see
is “red”.
The mold had instructions on it’s cardboard wrapper on how to use it and had a table of how much cement was needed to fill whatever size walkway one wanted to make. I took the wrapper off and laid the mold on the ground where I wanted the walkway to start - then flipped and turned it several times to cover the area I wanted cover - counting the mold sets I’d need. I needed six - which meant 6 bags of cement, which I then bought (that stuff is HEAVY!)
I weed-whacked the grass as low as I could get it in the area the walkway would be. Then I mixed up a batch of cement in an old metal tub. I made two mistakes - one, I mixed up PINTS with QUARTS in my mind (and then in the tub), so I added too much water at first, and had to keep adding cement to the tub. And two, I didn’t stir the color in the water enough before adding it to the cement. You do have to add the color to the water and then the water to the cement. And you have to stir the color in the water really well.
So my first “mix” of cement was a LOT…2.5 bags worth. I mixed it to a stiff enough consistency that it held it’s shape when I mounded it in the tub with the shovel I was mixing with (I used a long handled ditch-digging shovel to mix with). It was still pretty wet, but as long as it didn’t run, I was ok with it.
I used the shovel to scoop the cement mix into the mold center, heaping it up. Then I used a plastic wallpaper smoother to move the cement aound to fill the holes of the mold up. I wore plastic gloves so I used my hands to fill in the mold as well. Once I was sure the mold holes were all filled, I lifted the mold off and laid it down where the next set of stones needed to go. The actual filling of the mold, smoothing and lifting took like 15 minutes per mold set. After I moved the mold, I used my hands to push any small cement pebbles flat that were sticking up. The mold itself is designed to leave the cracks bewteen the stones.
I repeated for the other five mold sets I needed - the mold itself interlocks every way you could want it to interlock (except if making a curve, but they gave you instructions on how to do even THAT!). Once my six were done, I had some colored cement left over so I used the top row of stones in the mold to make up stones with the cement to use it up. I needed to freehand a bit but even THAT was easy. Here are a side view and a long view of the walkway:
That was it to laying the walkway. Cleanup was easy - just water from the garden hose. The mold can be used and reused and reused. It’s made from a hard plastic.
I waited two days to plant the plants. The stones lightened up in color A LOT in those two days. But they were “formed” and set within hours of me making them. After the two days, I lifted a few of the stones just to see what they looked
like, and then realized that I could MOVE this walkway if I wanted to. How cool is THAT!
Anyhoo, I used a post hole digger to dig holes for the hibiscus on the edges, planted the plants, covered the roots with compost and then edged the two rows of flowers with large rocks. I planted the thyme in the cracks, and then used a
whisk broom and dustpan to put the sand in the cracks. I brushed the sand off the stones, and then used my garden hose to sprinkle water on the sand and pack it down. It rained later that day to help with that.
When I do this again, I’d put several layers of newspaper under the cement on top of the weed-whacked grass. It will slow down the growth of stuff coming up through the cracks that I didn’t want. Otherwise, I just LOVE this!
Get yourself a cement mold, and see what you can create. And tell me about it!
Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
Shopping Cart Repurpose
June 25th, 2006 Email the link for this page to a friend!
The more I repurpose things the more I hear about what others are doing. I *LOVE* that part! There are so many times when someone shares something with me that I would not have thought of on my own, no matter how long I lived. That’s true with this most recent “sharing”.
Now, I’m pretty sure we all can’t go out and make this one without buying ourselves a shopping cart - the carts we see at stores belong to the stores and we can’t just take one to do this. I don’t know how the person who did this got their cart, but I have to say, they are really, really creative. Check this out:
A shopping cart grill. Complete with toasting poles. No kidding. Click on that picture to get a bigger view. Now, a close look at that cart shows that it is the kind you have to pay money into (where I live, it’s a quarter) to release the cart from the long line of carts. You get your money back once you return the cart. I guess someone thought it was worth the lost quarter to be able to cook their eggs in “shopping cart style”.
And that “style” is a whole new one on me - has anyone done anything ELSE with shopping carts?
Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
Stone Art
June 20th, 2006 Email the link for this page to a friend!
This weather is so conducive to being outside - I just find myself designing more things outdoors these days. This newest design is really simple to make - yet really, really beautiful. You’ll see that this one is placed in a small steam, but the design would work in any “water” spot in your yard - from a small barrel to a babbling brook. Your only limitation is in the size and shape of the
stones you use.
Mine were slate slabs. Feel free to get a bigger view of them by clicking on the picture. When working in moving water, it’s a little more difficult to get the space dug out that is needed to stand up the stone. Dig a space larger and deeper than you need. Stand the stone (or stones) in and pile other rocks around the base to help anchor the stone. If you have saved the earth you dug out, put it over the top of your rock pile. It will settle in.
If making this in a small fountain or reflecting pool, using large rocks and stones as anchors should be enough. You shouldn’t need (or in some cases, want) to use any dirt. Just fill in with pebbles, rocks and stones, and you’re good to go. And if you do make something like this, I would SO love to hear about! Tells us about it here on the blog or at :
http://www.frugalbydesign.com/share.html
Until the, I remain…
Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
Father’s Day Frugal
June 18th, 2006 Email the link for this page to a friend!
One of the things I have in common with my father is a love of gardening. So, for today’s blog entry, I wanted to share a frugal gardening idea - something that the guys in my life have thought was not only cool and fairly easy to do, but environmentally-friendly. You’ll be using newspaper and used shingles - mine were pulled off a roof, and then used for these projects. One thing I will caution you on - get the shingles WITHOUT the roofing nails attached. Removing the nails from the load of shingle pieces (which I did have to do with a magnetized wand) is NOT fun.
The process for doing both the garden walkway and the extra parking space are the same:
* Mow or weed whack anything growing in the area that you’ll be covering with shingles. Take it all the way to the ground.
* Cover the area with several layers of newspaper overlapping as you go. This will prevent weeds from growing up where you don’t want them.
* Lay down your shingles. You can do a pattern if you want - or not. I didn’t really do a pattern, but I did put the shingles down in the garden pathway in a way where the shingle edges were all laying in the same two directions - up & down and side to side. (Click on the pictiures - you’ll see what I mean.) I just liked how that looked. I didn’t do that in the parking area. You can see the difference by clicking on the pictures to get a bigger view.
I did check online before doing this in the garden area to make sure that the shingles didn’t put anything into my soil that I didn’t want there. I didn’t find info saying that it would and did find one scientific test that said it didn’t. Your results may vary.
This is the parking space completed. I used the really small shingle pieces on this, putting them down on the bottom “layer” of the shingles. I then covered them with a layer of larger pieces.
These two projects used most of the shingles I got from one small house’s roof. It didn’t really take a lot to do it, and I find that garden area VERY easy to get around in now that this is down. If you do this, feel free to tell me about it at:
http://www.frugalbydesign.com/share.html
I would SO love to hear about it.
Your Frugal Decorating Diva,
Nancy
