by Barbara Bechtel
It's May Day! For those of you in the Northern hemisphere, this is a traditional celebration in May 1st celebrating the beauty of spring! Also, May 12th is our Mother's Day in the US....so I've been perusing the web gathering ideas for some ideas for something to make for my mom!
As much as my mom enjoys receiving handmade jewelry, I'm always on the look out for other gifts that I can make using my jewelry skills that aren't quite jewelry. Being an avid gardener, I thought this year I would whip up some coppery goodness to adorn her garden!
Copper is a timeless addition to any garden! It will it form its own beautiful patina over time from the elements and add beauty and character to your landscape! Copper is essential for plant growth and in organic gardens, is often a soil supplement and is thought to repel slugs and snails!
Here are some ideas that I'm currently loving:
1) Garden stakes/ plant markers. Put those alphabet stamps to work! By cutting stake-shaped strips from copper sheet, stamp some common herb or veggie names! For more established gardens where you want to see those stakes after the plants take off and start to grow, consider making long curved hooks from 14-16g. wire and stamping purchased shapes to hang from the top of the hook. Using very thin gauge sheet will also yield a shape that is thin enough to emboss with a stylus or ball point pen.
2) Get crafty with your wire and old beads! Practice making butterflies, dragonflies by bending and wire wrapping wire to make a pretty garden ornament. Add some colorful glass beads from your stash to add even more interest!
3) Copper tubing (found in the plumbing section of your hardware store) is a beautiful pliable material that can be used to form larger ornaments and will double as a small trellis or cage for training tomatoes, vining plants and ivy's.
4) This cute craft is simple enough to complete with children and only requires some old cake pans and a bag of cheap plastic craft beads from the craft store! Let the children arrange the beads in the pan, bake and release when cool, drill a hole and add some fishing line!
Have you taking your jewelry skills to the outdoors? I'd love to hear your favorite projects!
6 comments:
Cool ideas!
These are all lovely! I love the copper sign, the cage/trellis, the dragonflies and the painted cake pans!! I'm always painting birdhouses, the kind that are meant to be used by birds, not ornaments. I also like to create feeding dishes for birds out of discarded sections of bird feeders and household kitchen items. I also decorate wind chimes, bells and plant hangers with copper wire or copper sheet.
Zoraida - http://artzjewelry.wordpress.com
I am all over the craft for the kids! Does the plastic pull away from the cake pan easily? What a fun thing to do with my grandchildren!
i think this is the best art jewelry information that you have shared here. Thanks
GREAT ideas! I may have to make some scrap metal bugs for plants now. I am really liking that idea, and I've been dying to solder this week!
Be careful when using copper in the garden. Some of the chemicals used to process it can leach into your soil and then into your veggies and some of them can be dangerous to your Heath. The tags should be okay but try not to use the tubing to hold the tags up.
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