So the second satellite dish finally got turned into a bird bath.
Before:
After:
I used thinset to set all the glass beads on the dish.
I am still debating on whether I would like to grout it or not.
I wont be sealing it, because I don't think there is any sealant safe for birds out there.
On my recent trip to India I collected some seeds called manjaadi kaai. Here is a link to some info on it. Well, strictly speaking, I did not collect it, I just picked up my mother's collection. These little coral like seeds, drop to the ground as the seed pods mature. I was meaning to make some jewelry from it, initially, but then I decided that rather than store it away somewhere until I am ready to make something out of it, I would rather display it:
The flower like woody things sitting inside this glass jar are actually seed pods that my mother also collected for me. The tree sheds these massive seed pods during the rainy season. Now, no one is able to tell me the name of this tree from which such magnificent seed pods arise, so I will have to keep searching until I find it. These pods occur in a bunch, almost like a flower. Each pod is about 4 to 5 inches long and three inches wide.
Once I put it up in the vase, I realized that I wanted some more luster on the pods. Not exactly color it, but, you know, to just add a little punch.
So, I experimented with several things. Here is what it looked like with Martha Stewart's metallic paints. I believe the shade was called copper. It was a bit much for me.
Next, I tried some nail polish on it. Yes, I know! :)
I tried four colors on that pod. The silvery color is actually Martha Stewarts titanium. I thought I might try the titanium thing on an entire pod and see how I liked it.
I kinda liked it, but still... just wasn't able to commit to it. I thought I might paint the rim of the pods this color.
So the search continued on.
I decided to try the patio paint I had bought for another project, where I made a planter from some patio blocks. I never did paint the planters, so I had lots on hand. This is how it looked.
Now, this I liked a lot. It looked just like nature intended, only dressed up a little to party!
Now that the outside of the pods were all painted, I thought, may be some color on the inside -- something to "pop" would look even nicer. So I tried another shade of nail polish.
Meh... wasn't that exciting. So, I tried some red glitter glue.
I kinda liked how it looked, but I thought too much of this may just be too overwhelming. Also, it might have a very Christmasy look and I was kind of going for an all year thing.
So, in the end, this is where I am at. I still don't know if I want the silver on the rim and what I want to do with the interior. What do you think?
Does the inside look too bare? Should it be dressed up?
So I had this old tea kettle lying around at home that I did not really like all that much. It had a rather uninspiring finish and was just-- blah. Anyway, it got fairly good use as a tea kettle, but once the handle started to rust, it became less used as a tea kettle and more of a temporary kitchen scrap holder.
Finally, I decided to give it new life and center stage in my garden.
Tada! Behold my tea kettle turned garden art. All it took was some copper spray paint from the local hardware store.
I hung it on a shepherds hook, so that when it rains, some water will fall through the spout making an interesting water feature.
The idea is for it to gather up some extra water during the rain and pour it at the feet of the ever-thirsty hosta.
The lid became a bird bath.
The stone in the centre should hopefully keep it from flying off in the wind and also provide a little perch for the thirsty flighty things!
Do you like my chocolate sunrise blooming gloriously just beyond the birdbath?
Remember the cinder block bench I constructed last year? Here is a link.
I made another one today, but a little different looking. This time, I used no capstone, just 4 cinder blocks and two posts for the bench.
All I did was to stack one cinder block vertically over a horizontally placed cinder block and insert the two posts through the holes. Of course, I do need to work on clearing up the area near and around the bench.
Wood pallets come in several sizes and types. The ones I scored from my garden cinder block delivery were large and looked like this:
This was too big for the projects I wanted to try and so I put it off for a while. Until on the way to work one day I spied a stack of pallets that were just the right kind -- stronger boards and also heat treated. I talked to the owner of the beer wholesaler and got me a couple of those boards. They looked like the first pic on this post.
I started by sawing off the appropriate end of the pallet using a Ryobi reciprocating saw. To end up with this
It already looked like a shelf, except it had no bottom. To make a bottom, I sawed off one of the narrower planks on the remaining piece of the pallet which gave me this
And the leftover pallet looked like this
Hmm this itself is an interesting shape and is giving me more ideas. But, I have to stick to my project on hand for now.
Then came the Grand Sanding! I used some 3M sand paper with coarse and medium grit, but soon tired of it and decided to invest in a power sander. So got me a Ryobi orbital 1/4 sheet sander and went to town on the boards with it.
I then used Minwax Espresso satin to stain the bottom board to see if I would like this color for the entire shelf.
I really loved it, but was not too sure that I would like for the whole shelf to be this color, seeing as it is so dark. So I decided to paint part of it white with some house paint I had lying around and stain part of it this color.
All I had to do now was attach the bottom to the shelf and then hang it over the rods in the kitchen nook (see here for the kitchen nook). I originally planned on using an L-bracket on the inside to screw the bottom to the rest of the shelf, but it was impossible to get into that tight spot with my screw driver. So, I found some wood screws that I simply used to screw the bottom to the sides of the shelf
Wood screws attached the bottom to the sides of the shelf
Now I am all done except for the hanging on the wall part.
Now I finally have a place to put my oversized baking accessories that had to be stored in the oven until now!
All I have to do is find a safe way to put it up on the wall!
This has got to be the fastest, easiest, smallest project I have ever done.
My entry way had a key organizer that looked like this:
Anyone who was married in the south of India has some version of this. In fact, I bet they have a million copies of some version of this. The clock stopped working perhaps the very first day we opened the package. But, it served its purpose for while until, as always, the number of keys that needed a home far out numbered the hooks on this thing.
Enter an old trivet from IKEA that I saved from the dumpster several times over.
I cleaned the thing, removed the hooks from the old key organizer and screwed them on to the old trivet and voila! I have something that is much more Zen.
I used to old nail that held up the old key organizer to hang this thing. I used the same nail to also hang one bunch of keys. There is easily room for three more hooks on this thing.
After I fixed all the hooks I realized that I wanted the pieces of wood to go horizontal -- that's more Zen to me than vertical stripes. Oh well! I will just have to find the other trivet and hang it horizontally!
