"It's easy!"

So said Wouterina Riana DeRaad when I swooned over her garden sculpture park. "When you start, you won't want to stop!" That latter I'm sure was meant to be encouraging, but for someone like me, it also serves as a warning: DANGER! DANGER! NEW HOBBY AHEAD!

This stop on the Garden Bloggers Fling was the epitome of garden art and creativity. While I would love to take a workshop, a little voice in my head carps that this is not my art form. The artist learned to work with stucco when she and her former husband purchased a fixer-upper, the themes in these functional yet whimsical pieces reflect her personal history and upbringing, and living in the country, she can put pretty much anything she damn well pleases in her yard and on her house (including the red flying Pegasus from a Mobil oil ad, which I neglected to photograph).

I have some garden art in my yard, all purchased or gifted. If I wanted to create my own, what would my media be? What would be the theme? I'll have to ponder that a bit.

Other examples of creativity abounded on the garden tour, from the use of natural materials to the repurposing of a variety of objects.

Deconstructed weather vane hides chicken wire fence

Saw bowling balls in several gardens - is this a thing?

Sticks...

...more sticks...

... another stick.

Tea kettles to planters

Bird cage?

Shovel birds

Something or other as plant holder

One lump or two?

It's a garden party!

Stone bird bath

Painted lumber

One of the more intriguing DYI projects we came across were these concrete planters. They are not actually concrete but styrofoam containers treated to resemble concrete.

We were first fooled, then amazed. But now that I Googled for some instructions, I see that they are not such a secret to the Internet.

After seeing so much creativity everywhere we went, I came home wanting to somehow duplicate everything. But do I really want a bowling ball in my garden? Where would I put faux concrete planters and what would I put in them? Where would I find enough straight sticks to make a trellis, big or small? And then there is the underlying talent, which I seem to lack - my stuff ends up looking "homemade" instead of "handmade".

But I bet I could put together a door mat from bottle caps.