To tidy up your summer cottage, you need not only to remove, cut and plant young trees, but also decorate the area with new garden decor.
A great way to get rid of old trash lying around in pantries, attics and garages is to make your own garden figures. Creating an interesting decoration for your site is simple, you do not need to spend money on expensive purchases in stores for summer cottages. Moreover, making garden figures with your own hands is the process of creating unique, inimitable decor items according to your desire, which will delight your eyes and the eyes of your neighbors.
Garden decoration
Who doesn't dream of a little paradise in their garden? About bright flowers and fragrant apples on the trees, about a cozy gazebo and a hammock. You can diversify the garden and your plot not only with beautiful bushes, flowers and trees, but also with the help of figures from different materials: gypsum, cement,plastic bottles, old iron, unnecessary tires from cars and wood. We will tell you several ways to create garden figures with your own hands and, perhaps, we will start with plaster.
Plaster figures
Gypsum figures will give comfort to your garden. Even the most inexperienced creator will cope with this material, because the creation process is very simple with a minimum of subtleties. Gypsum will help to realize any fantasy, which means that with its help you can create any composition in the garden. In this article, we will tell you how to make garden figures with your own hands step by step, share ideas and photos. One of the ideas you will definitely like.
Before you start creating garden figures from plaster with your own hands, decide exactly what character you want to make. Draw a rough sketch.
Without special skills and talent, you are unlikely to create an exquisite sculpture, but you can make a small decoration for a cozy garden. Let yourself dream up, create a small composition, enliven your garden. Try adding animals to it: small rabbits with carrots, a cat lying imposingly in the shade of trees. To create a romantic atmosphere in the garden, angels are suitable.
And if you have children, then create fairy-tale characters, a small castle or a whole mini-land of Oz, as a result you will get a great playground for children.
We will be happy to tell you how to make garden figures with your own hands.
Fungus
The most, perhaps, the simplest,what you can try to make is a fungus.
For the manufacture of plaster decorations for the site, ready-made molds are most often bought. All that is needed for this is to stir and pour gypsum, and then color it if desired. Such molds are sold in special stores for summer cottages and plots, but they don’t always have the right ones, and they are sometimes expensive. Therefore, we will try to make our fungus from improvised material.
Required material and tools
Gypsum is one of the most popular materials for creating garden figures, but it is very fragile. And here's what you need to know when creating figures from it: if you plan to make a large-sized craft, come up with a metal frame for it. This way you will avoid unpleasant destruction.
First of all you will need:
- Sculptural plaster.
- Building adhesive PVA.
- Plastic bottles, old dishes as molds.
- Food wrap.
- Woodcutters.
- Soap.
- Water.
- Sunflower oil.
Stock for decoration:
- Paints (acrylic is best).
- Beads, flowers, beautiful stones.
- Lakom.
Get everything you need ready and start creating your unique sculpture.
Process
So, our figure is a fungus. It consists of two main parts: legs and caps. Let's start with the first one.
Before you start creating parts of the sculpture, prepare a mixture of grated soap, sunflower oiland water in a ratio of 2/1/7. This mixture must be lubricated with cling film. Thanks to the solution, the gypsum will easily move away from the molds, you will not need to tear it off and spoil the gypsum figurine.
Also, do not dilute all the gypsum in advance, it sets quickly, you may not have time to prepare the mold, as the gypsum will already be wasted. Do not neglect the instructions on the packs. Before mixing plaster, read the rules and instructions. Proper preparation ensures the quality of your figurine.
Leg
To make the legs we need:
- Smeared film.
- A container that will easily fit the neck of a bottle, such as an old bowl.
- 2 liter bottle.
- 0.5 liter bottle.
Cover the bottom of the bowl with cling film. From a large plastic bottle, cut the neck of the length you need. Cut off the neck of a small one of the same length.
Smear the soap solution on the inside of the big bottle and the small one on the outside. This is important, it saves you the hassle of separating the plaster from the bottle and keeps the part smooth.
Insert a small bottle into a large one, set it exactly in the center and pour gypsum into the resulting pipe. This way you save some material. After that, it is necessary to fix the bottle in a straight position with something heavy, for example, a flat stone, a thick board. When the plaster dries, remove the mushroom stem from the mold. The bottle can be cut with a utility knife.
Hat
The next thing to do is the mushroom cap. Servea bowl, bowl or any other deep dish that is proportional to the leg can be used as a mold.
Lubricate the mold with soapy water and boldly pour in the plaster. Take into account that as soon as the gypsum begins to dry out, you will need to dip the finished leg into it. This means that it is necessary to pour gypsum approximately 3/4 of the desired height. Remember the proportionality of the sculpture.
When the hat is dry, remove the bowl. All that remains is to decorate the fungus with paints, leaves, or add inhabitants to it.
Decoration
If you don't have a mold to pour a few autumn leaves, it doesn't matter, you can mold them from the drying plaster. In addition, from gypsum you can make small inhabitants that live near the mushroom. For example, a caterpillar, it only needs a few balls.
However, the decoration can be painted.
If you have plans for an unusual drawing on the mushroom, sketch a small sketch.
When the plaster hardens, it must be primed. To do this, you need a building primer or PVA diluted in water 1/2.
On dry soil, sketch the future drawing with light pencil strokes and start coloring.
You can fix additional parts in the form of leaves and residents using waterproof glue.
After dyeing the product, it must be covered with a good layer of varnish. This is a mandatory final procedure in working on the figure. After all, garden decorations will have to survive both rain and snow. The paint will peel off easily in this weather; toto preserve the beauty of the mushroom, you need to take care of its surface. Don't skimp on multiple layers.
The finished mushroom can be placed by a pond or flower bed, adding a couple more small mushrooms.
See what kind of plaster garden figures you can create with your own hands. This is not so difficult to do, gypsum is an unpretentious material that can survive bad weather and the sun. Get inspired and create.
Rock garden decorations
Before you move on to creating your own cement garden figures, get acquainted with stone decorations. From large boulders and small pebbles, you can lay out several compositions. And if you're a good artist, be sure to try painting a couple of huge rocks.
Cement Figures
Let's find out how do-it-yourself garden figures are made on a cement basis. According to the principle of creation and decoration, the work process is no different from plaster crafts.
Bathroom
We have an idea to spice up your little piece of paradise and attract birds. No, these are not feeders, although they are no less pleasing to the eye decoration in the garden. A bath of cement - that's what we will try to do now. If rhubarb grows in your garden or garden, then this is very good, because it will serve us as a form for the future figure.
Several of these bathing leaves can be placed under trees, shrubs or right next to rhubarb.
Make cement garden figures your ownhands as easy as plaster. Here's what we need to create a new shape for the garden:
- Cement.
- Sand.
- Wide rhubarb leaf.
- Paint for decoration.
- Tassels.
- Water.
- Newspapers.
- Ground or PVA glue.
First, let's take care of our work surface and cover the table with newspapers.
Next we need sand, it will create the bottom of the pool for us.
Take a wide leaf of rhubarb and lay it face down in the sand.
The diluted cement solution should resemble sour cream in density. Take care of the quality of the cement mortar, it should not spread.
Once you've mixed the cement, gently cover the entire area with the rhubarb leaf.
When the workpiece hardens, start decorating.
Before coating the product with paints, the cement sheet must be covered with primer. Glue diluted with water is an excellent replacement for building primer. As soon as a couple of layers of soil harden - proceed.
Ideal bath color is bronze or gold, however, you can dream up and create your own special range.
Lacquer is not needed for such a figure, cement is a resistant material.
Blooming hands
Besides simple shapes and decorations, we have an interesting idea for flowers. Look at these hands. They look very unusual.
For a flower garden you will need:
- Cement mortar.
- Rubber gloves.
- A few colored pots or any other containers,true to size.
First, find a suitable container in which the gloves will harden in the desired shape. Then dilute the thick cement mortar.
Fill the gloves with cement and place in position in the pot. Make sure that in the palms there is room for flowers and soil for them.
When the solution has set, cut off the gloves.
The finished hand can be covered with paints, leave a natural color, whiten or diversify with patterns.
Give your hand any shape, make several hands and you will get original small flower beds for the garden.
It is best to plant dwarf long-lived plants in your hands so that they delight you all summer season.
Where to place such flowerpots, you will definitely find. They will look good along paths, and on window sills, and in flower beds, and on hanging shelves.
Ideas from wood
If you are not a master in wood carving - it does not matter. We will tell you how to make wooden garden figures with your own hands. To do this, we do not need much: you can create a composition from any unnecessary rubbish, the main thing is to find inspiration and turn on your imagination. Collect all unnecessary driftwood, old stumps and branches and get started.
Imagine you are Carlo's dad and create some little people in your garden.
If you still have children's clothes, then we will find a use for them, for example, dress up wooden men.
Did you find a block for the torso? With a couple of nails and driftwood create the arms and legs. And foruse paint to create faces.
How do you like these DIY garden figures? The photos will inspire you.
We hope you have been inspired by our ideas for decorating gardens and summer cottages, learned how to use plaster, cement, wood, stones, and also found easy ways to create DIY garden shapes.
