Garden Objects #3

pretty color

Terri, what a beautiful angel! Your struggle to move her reminds me of when I tried to move my cat sculpture a few years ago. Like your angel, the cat is about 4' tall, thankfully "skinny" but it should have taken two people to move it - it's HEAVY! Rick didn't want to move it from its former location in the front driveway so I took an opportunity when he wasn't around and moved it myself! If anyone had seen me they would have had a good laugh, watching me slowly rotating it all the way down the hill!
LOL

Stormy, I love the new sculpture, what a beautiful blue! Hmmmm...I need more "objects"!

we have our challenges but most of the time we "git 'er done" LOL I once spied some sections of tree trunk and thought- free firewood- boy were they heavy!!!!!

Yep, a lot of challenges but how boring it would be without them LOL. Stormy, I love your garden objects - so many and so many different styles that all seem to work well together - creativity at its finest! After seeing all the pictures in these garden objects threads, I find that I'm paying a lot more attention to this aspect of gardening. Objects can be so subtle, but what an impact they can have. Now I'm having fun hunting for things when I'm out and about, and rethinking things that I might otherwise throw away. Sally, I wish I had seen your lamp refurbishing project before I got rid of my old brass coated exterior lights - the cheap brass plating was chipped and parts were corroded, but they would have been nice if I fixed them up like you did yours. Now I want to use more candlelight on the porch and dock, and maybe even on some of the paths :-) Terri

Happy Frogs! Two of the ponds are nearly covered with new growth.Ric

OOOOOOOOO, Those are cute happy frogs.

very cute

These two are oblivious to the fly, her badly repaired broken leg, and the sun damage to their skin.

True love

Roses, that is too cute and looks charming with the Campanula & Cosmos.

I have two of these little gate gazing ball holders on either side of my garden path. Last year one blew off in a storm and fell and broke. I had never gotten around to securing it with the plumber's putty. Last month the replacement arrived and I quickly secured the two with the putty. Last week a walnut dropped off of the tree and broke the new one!!!! Guess I'll have to spring for more $ and get the steel ones. It's a shame, they don't have as nice a luster as the glass ones.

love the frogs RRR... that's too bad Stormy

stormy....

Another "bright" suggestion...

Buy yourself a few of those large X-Mas balls when they go on clearance and use those. You might get them for 75% or more off after the holidays. AND--they are glass! No big deal if one breaks.....

G.

Thanks, Gita. I've never seen one this big. The gazing balls are 10".

The smaller balls are just not in keeping with the scale of the holder.
Here's an 8" ball. This one is steel. It's almost too small for this stand.

Here are some 4" Gazing Ball stakes. I liked how they looked with the Allium. Course they would look a lot better if more stuff would grow here.

stormy--

I have seen 10" balls...They are the kind they use fpr outdoor decorations....Now??/ WHERE did I see them??
Tuesday Morning comes to mind......I am also thinking that HD had something really big....

How about one of those Christmas Shops that open up in abandoned store locations?

Gita

Gita, I'll have to check it out and look to see how thick the glass is. Regular Xmas tree balls would just be too thin and breakable.

I haven't seen any of the steel balls in gold. I liked how the setting sun would come through these trees and the glow from the gold balls was really pretty. Should be easy to find gold Xmas balls. Hard plastic ones would be OK too.

I just looked though my christmas decorations and of course I don't have a photo of them.. but I do have 12" gold balls we hung from a tree in front of the house.. made of plastic and very shiny

Onewish, thanks. Maybe I can find some this year. Do you remember where you got them and about how much they were? Those steele gazing balls are very expensive.

yes they are from christmas depot... last year after season they were all gone though.. maybe they have them now

http://www.christmasdepot.com/

Thanks, Onewish!

I got the big Christmas balls at Target on clearance one year.

Thanks, Jen. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

wish I would have bought more of them... we picked them up 2 years ago after season.. and only for $2.00 each... they sparkled with the lights so nicely I wanted more... but all gone

I bought some of those large Christmas balls on sale at Ace Hardware for about $2.00 last year.

Stormy, your blue metal sculpture looks like Caldor's work as seen a few years ago at Storm King Art Center in Westchester County, in NY.

I got a real find today at the Salvation Army Thrift Store today, I'm walking down the house-ware aisle and see what I figured had to be a faux stained glass sun catcher, with a closer look it proved to be the real deal. It should make a colorful addition to her gazebo. It's 18"s tall and rather well done.
I've found some nice pieces at these shops, such as a 1960 Kenneth Harris watercolor and a very nice canvas back decoy by L.S. 9/98, all for under $10. I may have only made 3 purchases in 30 stops but what the heck, if I'm driving by??? LOL Ric

Awwwww--Ric,

You are ALL mush! Like a chocolate eclair--just oooozing sweetness......

:o)

very nice

Thanks Gita, I'll take that as a compliment! This is the watercolor,not a garden object but it is art and the photo does not do it justice. This artist is supposed to be fairly well known in Va. shore areas. Ric

They are both lovely, Ric. Great finds!!!!

my next door neighbor paints pictures like that and sells them in chincoteague at the light house every year.. she is really good

Thanks all, This little guy real caught my eye. Ric
We have a number of shore bird decoys by various artist and he fits right in.

This message was edited Aug 19, 2009 10:55 PM

This Gargoyle is cast iron. It was found in a barn between Lancaster and Reading Pennsylvania along with three others by a York Dealer who got into my knickers at a show in New Jersey. It is now installed bolted down to a half ton dead man under the mulch. It guards our front entry with honor. Only asks for a drink about once a week.

my honey would love that

I have been told that the critter is Circa 1885 to possibly 1910. It appeared in a Cherry Hill Mall Antiques show in the hands of a very reliable dealer. I had to stare at all three for four days and it just grew it's way into my trailer as the show closed.

Unique!!

Doc, That surely is a beauty! So much better than a new massed produced item. Lots of character!

LOTS OF CHARACTER.....you bet because the molds were hand made. Time was provided to the carver to put that detail into the molds and making the character into the product. Two molds for the body, two for each wing and at least four for the bowl. Those molds were then assembled and poured by hand. When the parts were released they were cleaned up and polished by hand. This can still be done but then you would be looking upwards to $2000.00 and possibly more. That is why there is mostly only ho hum mass produced sculpture today.

In modern epoxy cast there can be no detail and character. In five years the object will be showing UV attack. Not to much later your five hundred dollar sculpture is all in and done. When they plant me......the cast iron beauty will bring back four or more times what I paid for it twenty years ago in the final estate auction. Nothing will have changed enough to talk about. It is good for another two hundred years or so. I won't last quite that long.

Actually that piece should go to a public held museum that knows how to preserve cast iron. Today that is inside display to keep it from being taken for scrap iron weight. If I knew where it was made I would consider doing this but in it's home territory.

Doc, I just love that, very interesting. What a great piece.
Stormy, I've been wanting to post this pic for a month now and just don't get around to it. I cleaned up an area near my front entrance laid down some new landscaping fabric and mulched the area. It left me with a nice empty spot for a good sized object of some type. I haven't found what I want for that space yet but just couldn't let it sit empty. We had an old cement lawn-roller laying behind the barn and for years I would think what am I going to do with that. Well it has found a temp home until something larger catches my eye.

I have always thought it would make a good water feature like my blue ball, but I don't need another one like that right now. Might make a nice little table with a glass top or maybe a plant stand. But for now it will fill in this spot until I find something bigger. I have already had a few nice comments, Josh thinks it would look great sitting on his patio. LOL

Holly, It would make a great table. But it would also be good in a mini bed if maybe there were another 1 or 2 architectural forms along with it. Maybe something sphere shaped or/and something spire shaped, like an obelisk trellis. Got anything like that laying around?