Let's Add Sprinkles: Recycle

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Upcycled Bird Bath/10 on the Tenth

Welcome to $10 on the 10th, where DIY, Lifestyle and Home Decor Bloggers share ideas under $10.00.

Our theme this month is Upcycling and Recycling. One of my favorite things to do.
Last year in a fit of carelessness, I broke a cute bird bath.

It sat pretty low to the ground. I think I threw something down into the flower bed, hit it and snapped it right off of the base.

This is metal so I was a little surprised that I was able to break it.

It hung around the deck for almost a year. I was waiting for Bill to get sick of seeing it so that he would fix it for me.

He didn't. This year during the spring deck clean up, I moved it from the back of the house to the garage. I even mentioned that it needed to be fixed. He didn't take the bait.

Extreme boredom prompted me to give it a try.

The metal fitting needed to be removed in order to see if it could be fixed.

I used locking pliers to get a good grip on it. To my shock, it came loose.

The stand to an old Christmas mailbox would work for now since we were under lockdown.

All the Christmasy doo dads were removed from the base. There was snow, garland, and grapevine.

I needed a screw with threads that would match the threads in the bird bath. A quick dig through our stash of screws yielded a perfect screw.

The other end needed to be able to screw into the wood so we used a hack saw to saw the head of the screw off.

It took a while but it worked.
I carefully drilled a hole into the top of the base. I wanted to make sure that I didn't inadvertantly make the hole too big and ruin the whole project so I started with a small drill bit and worked my way up.
I meant to glue the pieces together for added security but to be honest, I was so excited that I may have forgotten that step.

How to marry these two together?

I was a little over the rusty look. After a good brushing, it got a couple of coats of spray paint.

My favorite paint for the garden is Rust-oleum Painter's Touch 2xs in Moss Green.

I've touched up a lot of garden accessories with it.
I had this on hand but it is almost empty so I need to get some more. It's $3.98 a can. I'll get some more next time we can get out.
Found bricks help it stand in the garden. I love that this is repaired.

It adds more interest now that it is taller than it was originally.

Zinnias and cosmos will surround this darling in a couple of months.
This was fun to do. It adds a fun new element to the garden. It was also fun shopping the yard.