Cement is not only a well-known building material, it is successfully used for the manufacture of various crafts for a summer residence, a private house, bas-reliefs are made of it in loft-style apartments.
Photos of cement crafts can be seen in the most unexpected places; garden furniture and flowerpots for landscape design, sculptural compositions and decoration of paths are made of it.
Concrete garden decorations
Speaking of cement, it must be borne in mind that in fact all crafts are made of concrete - a mixture of cement with water in various proportions.
To make elegant and durable cement crafts with your own hands, you need to prepare the following materials and tools:
- Cement;
- Water;
- Unwanted towels or rags;
- Old bucket;
- Flower pots;
- Latex gloves;
- Large leaves with pronounced veins, such as rhubarb;
- Several old cans;
- Tights;
- Dyes;
- Stone paint.
Concrete vases
Concrete flowerpots are perhaps the most popular cement garden decorations. All you need is concrete, a pot, and an old towel.
- Stir the cement and water in a bucket.
- It should have a fairly thick consistency.
- For non-specialists, concrete is made from a mixture of cement, sand and water, but ready-made concrete is sold in construction stores, which is mixed only with water.
- Then wet towels are placed in the prepared solution so that they are completely covered with concrete mass.
- Any pot is turned upside down and a towel is placed on it. You can try to create any pattern you like, for example, waves, and then leave it to dry.
- The pot should be placed on some elevation, for example, a stool, or in a place where it will not be touched.
- After drying, we can paint the pot with any paint.
- It is best to use stone paints for this, preferably in rustic colors, or matching the shade with the decoration of the house.
Leaf-shaped cement decorations
Concrete leaves are a beautiful and interesting garden decoration. Their implementation is very simple and not time consuming. They can be used, for example, as elements of a fountain, decorative addition to rockeries or useful drinkers for birds.
Rhubarb leaves are best for self-cooking cement leaves. They are quite large in size, strong enough and have pronounced veins.
However, you can also use other plants, such as cabbage leaves or horse chestnut.
- We prepare the concrete mixture in a large vessel. The consistency should be thick enough and not too runny.
- We lay the sheet on the concrete prepared in this way and leave everything to dry for 24 to 48 hours.
- Try not to dry the concrete in the scorching sun, because then it will dry out too quickly and cracks may appear on its surface.
- To avoid cracks, add a little water from time to time.
- After the drying process is complete, remove the green leaf and enjoy a beautiful concrete decoration.
- Then you can paint the concrete sheet with a patina, but only after a few days, when it all really dries well.
Concrete mycelium
Concrete mushrooms in the garden look very natural and beautiful.
- To make these interesting concrete jewelry, we only need concrete and women's tights.
- Cut off the top of the pantyhose so that only the legs remain.
- You can soak them in vegetable oil for a while so they can be easier to remove from the concrete later.
- Tie the bottom of the pantyhose (where the foot is) in a knot, and then slide the pantyhose over a vessel, such as an old mug.
- We fill the measure with cement.
- Then we take out the tights and form the shape of our mushroom leg.
- It is best to hang tights on a branch, but the bottom should be on some kind of support, otherwise our mushroom will be late tilted to the side and will not be stable.
Next, we prepare the hats. If you plan to make fly agarics out of concrete, then mix the cement with red dye.
- We do the same as above - we pull the tights over a basin and pour the painted concrete inside.
- Then we tie the top of the tights just above the concrete level and put the whole thing on the jar so that a beautiful mushroom hat with a notch in the center is formed.
- The notches can be of different sizes to make hats of different sizes.
- We leave everything to dry.
By the way, such crafts from cement for a summer residence can also be made from gypsum.
After the concrete elements are dry, remove the tights and connect the mushroom rod to the cap. Pour some concrete inside the hat, which will connect both parts.
We leave everything to dry for a few days. Later we can paint our concrete decorations with stone paint and install our concrete mushrooms in the garden. They are sure to grab attention.
Gnomes and other fairytale characters
The technology is similar to the manufacture of concrete crafts described above. Well, if there is no sculptor's talent, then you can buy silicone or other forms and fill them with a cement mixture.
After drying, they stick together, like the stem and cap of a mushroom. In this case, the most interesting process is not making a figurine, but painting it. Concrete garden decorations can be made with your own hands in one day.
The fashion for concrete in the garden does not seem to go away, and the availability of materials and forms makes it increasingly necessary to choose such decorations for design.
You can also buy special patterns and shapes for architectural concrete that will help you create decorative elements for our gardens.
The most popular form is probably the honeycomb-shaped concrete forms, which can be used to create a beautiful path in the garden.
If you wish, you can aim at a serious project such as the manufacture of facade tiles with a unique pattern.
Photos of cement crafts
