Stepping Stones --These are simple to make, and it’s a project where you determine the budget and materials. Pick pre-made stones from the hardware store or cast your own. Design a mosaic pattern to be laid with stained glass or use colorful broken china from the thrift store. Attach the pieces using an outdoor adhesive, grout, and then seal. That’s it!
Luminaries -- These are particularly great around the patio, or in a sitting space you've created out in the garden. I use tin coffee cans (or soup cans, if I’m going to hang them) and using a hammer and nail, I poke holes -- sometimes random, sometimes in a lacy pattern. I love to put citronella candles in these and light them for a nighttime get-together -- they’re pretty and they keep the bugs away! Painting them ensures that they stay pretty during the daylight hours as well.
Bird Baths -- There are nine million ways to make a birdbath. I’ve created a mosaic over a pre-made bath from the hardware store. You could use a
pretty shallow bowl or dish -- you could simply place it in the nook of a tree or on a stump. Or go a bit more complex and use a spiral of flexible copper tubing to support the bowl and a copper pipe (both from the hardware store) to plant it in the ground. Over time, the copper will develop a gorgeous patina.
Tea-cup Birdfeeder -- Use thrifted vintage cups -- the really delicate ones -- and putting them in a group at varying heights. Using a good epoxy, like E600, glue the cup to its saucer, and then glue a small length of copper pipe or a pipe cap to the underside of the saucer. Then just glue a round dowel or length of pipe into that and you’re done! You can mix this up by creating a tower of cups and saucers or even using tall bud vases as part of the sculpture. If you would rather hang your feeders, use something like a Dremel tool to drill small holes that you can use to thread wire or chain through.
Wind chimes -- Wind chimes are super easy to make and limited only by your imagination. Use shells you’ve collected, copper piping, silverware, chandelier crystals, cheap wooden or metal bangles, dried bamboo from the floral section … all you need is something to string them with (string, wire, chain) and something to string them from (a metal ring, pretty saucer, small silver tray). And don’t forget that you can accessorize your chimes with beads, sea glass, and iridescent marbles!
