Pulley Wheel Garden Decor

On one of our trips back in 2017, I was so fascinated to see how people creatively used old household things and recycled/repainted/ redecorated or upcycled in some form of decor item.

One of them was our age old pulley wheels, used in Indian houses to draw water from the wells used as a wonderful garden decor item.

Early September 2017, during one of the carpentary works, which involved fitting of shelves in one of our wardrobes there were 2 scrap pieces of wood which was leftover. I requested the person to leave it for me, as I would find some use for it in future.

After the terrible Summer, when apart from few hardy desert plants, nothing else survives the desert heat, Winter was a season that was a visual treat to the eyes starting with the regular petunias and marigolds and periwinkles and zinnias etc adding splashes of colour everywhere. Apart from the individual gardens, the efforts taken by the municipality to beautify the place with respect to public gardens as well as along the sides of the main arterial roads is highly commendable. Getting to see so much of color around us in a desert was like a breath of fresh air. So October- April was when most of the garden lovers look forward to bring some color to their gardens, inspite of knowing that these plants won’t survive past April and hence a trip to the local nursery was something that was one of the Items in our “To Do” list.

Going through my craft supplies recently I came across these wooden pieces, which reminded me that I should do something with it for my garden decor.

My next mission was to find the wheel pulley. After visiting several hardware stores around, I was unable to find this particular type of pulley. Finally I requested the person who came for some handyman work to let me know in case he knew of any shop which sold these kind. He didn’t guarantee but said that he would try. I was convinced that this project would remain pending until the next time we travelled to India as back in India, there wouldn’t be any difficulty finding this pulley. But to my joy, the handyman messaged me saying that he was able to find it .

I immediately started working on the wooden pieces. After giving couple of coats of paint to the wooden pieces, fixed the pulley, painted 2 galvanized buckets and hung them with jute rope from the pulley .

Then added some seasonal plants to the buckets and ta da... my pulley garden decor is ready!!

For all you wonderful readers out there who like my work and were eager to know more about my DIYs and were wondering where I was all this while, let me start out by apologizing for my absence. I have been wanting to share all of my creations with all of you out there but couldn't due to personal reasons including a relocation to my homeland after 13 long years. Now that I am back, join me as I take a trip down my memory lane into the wonderful world of Art, Crafts, Journaling, Upcycling, Recycling and the list is endless... R U READY?? Then LETS GO...

Part -2

TRIBAL DOOR WITH EXPRESSIONS

What does the word RACK mean? One of the dictionaries gave me this meaning :

Rack- A framework or stand in or on which to hold, hang, or display various articles: a trophy rack; a rack for baseball bats in the dugout; a drying rack for laundry.

Hence the word SHOE RACK simply means a framework for holding/hanging the shoes and it meant the same for me too until its doors broke in a way it couldn’t be mended/put back together.

For quite a long time my shoe rack was simply kept open displaying both the fresh and the soiled shoes belonging to each one of us, with the broken door kept aside assuring myself that it would be used on a later occasion.

Everyday the broken door reminded me of its existence reinforcing that it was high time that either I should be working on it or simply find a place down the garbage chute. My mind was not agreeing even a bit to the idea of simply pushing it down the chute and that it when i thought that I better do something about it.

After a lot of pondering, I decided that what could be better than using terracotta again. But what exactly was the question now. That was when I arrived at the conclusion that what could be better that depicting different human facial expressions.

The steps that I followed is laid down:

· I used the decoupage technique to cover the frame portion of the door. Allowed it to dry for 24 hrs.

· Secondly I started making out tiny pots using air drying terracotta (Pls. refer to Part 1 on how to use air drying terracotta).

· Next I stuck the eyes and pinched the opening of the pots to give expressions to the lips. Allowed it to dry for 24 hrs. Then used acrylic paints to paint the dried pots. Left it to dry thoroughly for an hour.

· Next was to fix the stand or tiny shelves on which these pots were to be displayed. Here I have used small 1.5 inch * 1.5 inch MDF pieces, which was then tied on to metal wires on both ends and twisted to tighten it up.

· Next I marked the places where these pieces would be fixed on the door.

· Placed the board on the marked places and pulled out the metal wires behind the door through the tiny rectangular cavities on the door and twisted it tightly so that it didn’t move out of its place.

Now I stuck the terracotta pots, the mouth of the pot facing me.

Looking at the door the frame still looked quite empty. So I again used some terracotta figurines and placed it randomly here and there.

The ladles and pots you see here are also made of terracotta. The ladder is made out of toothpicks to give it the look of an exterior of a tribal home typical to India.