Garden Filling: Birdbaths

Good morning folks,

Before we do birdbaths, I wanted to show you 2 pictures of the amazing book I won from Jana over at http://illyriasminiatures.blogspot.com/ . I got her package in the mail and it was beautiful!

 

I decided to buy her table from Etsy, the one I blabbed on about because I thought it was so beautiful, in hand it is even more so!

 

Here is the wonderful little book she made, it is a gorgeous piece!

 Thank you again Jana!

 

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 Alrighty, lets talk birdbaths! 

 

You see from above I have decided to create two simple birdbaths from clay. But of course you can combine wood with clay, plastic pieces with clay, it all glues together... and once your paint is applied, you wont be able to tell ;)

 

So just break down your favorite picture of any birdbath to create the shapes:

 

I decided to make a simple shallow mold for the one bowl part of one birdbath. Remember to search your house like we did on Mold Making:

 

I used a drawer knob ;) 

 

So here is my dish mold

 

You would simply flatten out a piece of clay, cut a circle, for this one and press into the mold.

 

If your saying now, I don't have cutters..did you look around the house? Here are some of mine, yes those are plastic caps ;)

 

The hard part is going to be your bird bath bowl shape, so for that one molds would do nicely and twice bake if you want to make something more intricate.

 

You can also surround a tin foil shape or a large marble to get your rounded shape and add details to that.

 

Now for the base and middle, You can use a wooden dowel, a chess piece, a long discarded cap, just look around and use that mini eye and see the detail after you have painted it, of course I decided on clay for this round...SHOCKER!!

 

If you want to add detail via multi bakes do that before you, sand the rough spots and glue your pieces together in whatever order you like.

 

I just used a bunch of scrap clay because the next steps will be to paint in layers, maybe use crackle maybe shabby it.. but I like applying paint to look weathered.

 

SO I added one base coat of white, smeared a bit of grey, then more white on the first. The second one I coated black, then I just dabbed on grey to simulate peeling. Straight flat acrylic.

 

I hope this helps, we will continue our journey with a raised garden next time.

 

Let me know how you do :)

 

***Ps my nails are jacked up...WHY didn't you TELL me??? *lol***