To put in order your summer cottage, you need not only to clean, prune and plant young trees, but also to decorate the territory with a new garden decor.
A great way to get rid of old trash lying in pantries, in attics and in garages is to make garden figures with your own hands. 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 decorative objects of your choice that will delight your eye and the eyes of your neighbors.
Garden decoration
Who does not dream of a little paradise in his garden? About bright flowers and fragrant apples on trees, about a cozy gazebo and a hammock. You can diversify your garden and your plot not only with beautiful bushes, flowers and trees, but also with the help of figures made of 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 our own hands and, perhaps, we will start with plaster.
Plaster figures
Gypsum shapes will give cosiness 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 it 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. You will definitely like one of the ideas.
Before you start creating garden figures from plaster with your own hands, decide exactly what character you want to make. Sketch 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. Allow yourself to fantasize, create a small composition, revitalize your garden. Try adding animals to it: small rabbits with carrots, imposingly lying cat 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 heroes, a small castle or a whole mini-country Oz, as a result you will get an excellent playground for children's games.
We will be happy to tell you how to make garden figures with our own hands.
Fungus
Perhaps the simplest thing you can try to make is a fungus.
For the manufacture of gypsum decorations for the site, ready-made molds are most often bought. All that is needed is to stir and pour gypsum, and then, if desired, colorized. Such molds are sold in special stores for a summer residence and a plot, however, they are not always available there, and they are sometimes expensive. Therefore, we will try to make our fungus from improvised material.
Necessary material and tools
Gypsum is one of the most popular materials for creating garden figures, but it is very fragile. And here is what you need to know when creating shapes from it: if you plan to make a large-sized craft, think of a metal frame for it. So you will avoid unpleasant destruction.
First of all you will need:
- Sculptural gypsum.
- PVA construction glue.
- Plastic bottles, old dishes as molds.
- Cling film.
- Wood cutters.
- Soap.
- Water.
- Sunflower oil.
For decoration, stock up:
- Paints (acrylic is best).
- Beads, flowers, beautiful pebbles.
- Lacquer.
Prepare everything you need and start creating your own unique sculpture.
Process
So, our figure is a fungus. It consists of two main parts: legs and hats. Let's start with the first one.
Before you start creating parts of the sculpture, prepare a mixture of grated soap, sunflower oil and 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 figure.
Also, do not breed all the gypsum in advance, it quickly sets, you may not have time to prepare the mold, as the gypsum will be spent without use. Do not neglect the instructions on the packs. Before mixing plaster, read the rules and instructions. Proper cooking guarantees the quality of your figure.
Leg
To make the legs we need:
- Lubricated film.
- A container that easily fits the neck of a bottle, such as an old bowl.
- 2 liter bottle.
- 0.5 liter bottle.
Cover the bottom of the bowl with foil. Cut the neck of the length you need from a large plastic bottle. Cut the same length and the neck is small.
Lubricate with soapy water inside a large bottle and a small one on the outside. This is important, it will save you from the torment of separating gypsum from the bottle and will allow you to keep a flat surface of the part.
Insert a small bottle into a large one, place it exactly in the center and fill the resulting pipe with gypsum. This way you save some material. After this, it is necessary to fix the bottle in an upright position with something heavy, for example, a flat stone, a thick board. When the gypsum dries, remove the mushroom leg from the mold. The bottle can be cut with a clerical knife.
Hat
The next thing to do is a mushroom hat. A bowl, a bowl or any other deep utensil proportionally matching the leg can serve as a mold.
Lubricate the mold with soapy water and boldly pour in gypsum. Take into account the fact that as soon as the gypsum begins to dry out, it will be necessary to dip the finished leg into it. This means that you need to pour gypsum about 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, leaflets or add residents 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 laying gypsum. In addition, from gypsum, you can make small residents living near the mushroom. For example, a caterpillar, for it you need only a few balls.
However, the decoration can be drawn.
If you have plans for an unusual pattern on a mushroom, sketch a small sketch.
When the gypsum hardens, it must be primed. To do this, you need construction soil or PVA diluted in 1/2 water.
On the dried ground, lightly sketch the future drawing with light pencil strokes and start painting.
Fix additional parts in the form of leaves and residents with waterproof glue.
After staining the product, it must be covered with a good layer of varnish. This is a mandatory final procedure in the work on the figure. After all, garden decoration has to survive both rains and snow. Paint easily peels off in such weather; To preserve the beauty of the fungus, you need to take care of its surface. Do not skimp on several layers.
Ready mushroom can be placed at the pond or flower beds, adding a couple more small mushrooms.
See which DIY plaster garden figures you can create. This is not so difficult to do, gypsum is an unpretentious material that can survive the weather and the sun. Get inspired and create.
Decoration for a garden of stones
Before moving on to creating cement garden figures with your own hands, get acquainted with stone jewelry. From large boulders and small pebbles you can lay out several compositions. And if you are a good artist, be sure to try to color a couple of huge stones.
Cement figures
Let's find out how to make garden figures with your own hands on a cement basis. According to the principle of creation and decoration, the process is no different from crafts made of plaster.
Bathhouse
We have an idea how to revive your little paradise and attract birds. No, these are not feeding troughs, although this is no less pleasant decoration in the garden. A cement bath is what we are trying 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 a future figure.
Several of these leaflets can be placed under trees, shrubs, or at the rhubarb itself.
Making garden figures made of cement with your own hands is as simple as gypsum. Here is what we need to create a new figure in the garden:
- Cement.
- Sand.
- A wide leaf of rhubarb.
- Paint for decoration.
- Tassels.
- Water.
- Newspapers.
- Primer or PVA glue.
To begin with, take care of our work surface and the table cover with newspapers.
Next, we need sand, it will create for us the bottom of the pool.
Take a wide leaf of rhubarb and lay the leaf face down on 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 have mixed the cement, gently cover the rhubarb leaf over the entire area.
When the workpiece has hardened, proceed with the decoration.
Before coating the product with paints, the cement sheet must be coated with soil. Adhesive diluted with water is an excellent substitute for building soil. As soon as a couple of layers of soil harden - proceed.
The ideal color of the bath is bronze or golden, however, you can dream up and create your own special range.
Lacquer does not need such a figure, cement is a resistant material.
Blooming hands
In addition to simple shapes and decorations, we have an interesting idea for flowers. Look at these hands. They look very unusual.
For the flower garden you will need:
- Cement mortar.
- Latex gloves.
- Several color pots or any other containers of appropriate size.
First, find a suitable container in which gloves will harden in the desired shape. After dilute the thick cement mortar.
Fill the gloves with cement and place them in the desired position in the pot. Make sure that in the palms there is room for flowers and soil for them.
When the solution hardens, cut off the gloves.
The finished hand can be covered with paints, leave a natural color, whiten or diversify with drawings.
Give your hand any shape, make a few hands and you get the original small flower beds for the garden.
It is best to plant dwarf long-living plants in your hands, so that they will please you all summer season.
Where to arrange such flowerpots, you will definitely find. They will look good along the paths, and on the windowsills, and in the flower beds, and on the hanging shelves.
Wood ideas
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 . We don’t need much for this: you can create a composition from any unnecessary rubbish, the main thing is to find inspiration and turn on your imagination. Collect all the unnecessary driftwood, old hemp and branches and proceed.
Imagine yourself as Papa Carlo and create some little men in your garden.
If you still have baby clothes, then we will find use for it, for example, we will dress up wooden men.
Found a block for the torso? Using a pair of nails and snags, create arms and legs. And to create faces, use paints.
How do you like these DIY garden figures? Photos will inspire you.
We hope you were inspired by our ideas for decorating gardens and summer cottages, learned to use plaster, cement, wood, stones, and also found simple ways to create forms for garden figures with your own hands.