How to Create a Beautiful Garden Art Piece From Your Old Crockery
I love to transform unwanted and damaged items of a vintage nature by breathing new life into them and when I saw this piece of slate on a string in local charity shop thought it would be a great item to be decorated and be durable for the garden .
I begin by roughly drawing a spiral shape onto the slate. I imagine the pieces of vintage ceramic going around from the centre outwards. Curling gently in colourful pattern forms. You could design any shape you feel works for you and so good using your imagination to come up with unique designs..
I use wheeled tile nippers to cut the ceramic crockery into small pieces and try and choose little pretty flowers and patterns. I think would work well on the piece.
Next is to sand smooth the raw edges of the ceramic pieces and the mini hand held drill with a carbide wheel to go around the rough edges works a dream.
I use PVA glue to stick the little ceramic pieces onto the slate. I am starting from the centre and working outwards and careful to keep little gap in between pieces for the grouting later.
I sand the edges of the ceramic pieces to make smooth and position and PVA glue them in position in a spiral pattern.
I begin to put some cement grout into the centre of tiles and with an old pice of card begin working it through the cracks in spiral designs. When it has been on a few mins I wipe the excess grout off and clean up with tissues.
So pretty hanging in the garden!
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Thank You
I am always digging up shards in my yard..My house was build in 1900, and it is like a treasury hunt every time I dig
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You are so lucky to have that opportunity to find bits and then incorporate them into art work. You can take one especially interesting piece and make it the centerpiece of a project using more modern materials.
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Elaine, this is SO true! My home was built on land used as a chicken farm until my home and the ones nearby forming a circle were built in the early 1940. On one edge of the my pretty small property I found several broken bricks; in a back corner of my yard I found a beautiful water vase with a chip in the base. I reclaimed that! Also an expecting baby mug missing a handle.
The back corner of my yard has awesome topsoil. I planted a vegetable garden there for the first time in my life, this spring.
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Just curious , how’s it holding up? PVC is not waterproof and grout isn’t an adhesive.