Terracotta pots lighthouse

My second project of the month was a terracotta lighthouse made of, guess, terracotta pots and saucers.

The project is easy but my quest for perfection made difficult. Hint: choose a easy design, there are plenty of pictures of lighthouses in the internet but I had to pick the hardest one...the spiral!

You will need:

• 1 large terracotta saucer for the bottom, something that when flipped over will accommodate the rim of your first pot.
• 3 terracotta pots in decreasing size (as you like). Try it at the store to see the fit.
• 1 small terracotta saucer to fit the top pot.
• 1 battery operated votive candle (dollar store 3 for $1) or if you don't feel like turning it on and off  every day, do it like me and get a solar light (Walmart $1) and cut off the bottom stick.
• 1 tube of GE silicone caulking (check date, ready my previous post)

Set up your pots as seen in the pictures (make sure to add plenty of silicone as the pots are uneven and may not touch the previous ones all around).

Wait for it to dry. Paint it, add details, etc. Set it with a clear lacquer if you want. PS: I also used an white primer before my painting.

Glue light on top, add embellishments and you are done. It came out very pretty and the light really works.

Almost done. 

The little fences around the top and the doors came from a plastic soldiers set but you can use anything or make windows instead of doors.

The "glue"used.

Garden balls.

Two more projects done. Garden decor bowling balls.

Saw this project all over the internet, so I can't tell where it came from.

I used two bowling balls donated by a neighbor, they were designated to the trash. One ball was golden and the other blue. I covered the golden with pennies (collected in jar for many years) and for the blue one I used green/blue/white glass pebbles from the dollar store.

One good tip I found was to use GE silicone instead of glue and to make sure it was a fresh tube. I learned the hard way, after spending my morning gluing my pebbles, I came back to the craft table to find them all over the floor!

So here is how it goes:

Prepare you bowling balls by cleaning it well and sanding it a bit with sand paper. Clean it again.

Get your silicone and pebbles/pennies ready. Start from the top and work your way down to about quarter way (you may need to put masking tape or something to prevent it from slipping down).

Wait till dry, Flip over and start on the other side.

Wait till dry again and you will be able to work in the middle section with the dry ones holding it in place.

I cover the holes with corks (good use of my wine corks collection) because I didn't want any garden critter making that a home, I live in Florida where small garden snakes and frogs abound!

Easy!

GE 100% silicone tube good for one ball or you can use the larger tubes and a caulking gun.

Where the date is. Fresh tube.

Glass ball, used about 3 1/2 bags of pebbles from the dollar store.

Pennies ball. 

So there you have it. Now go looking for those old bowling balls and save them from the landfills.