We have a mini border fence on our driveway spaced out; mainly to keep our conceited neighbour and arrogant visitors from driving on it and sitting in the car on it. To brighten up the driveway and fill in the spaces in between fencing, added a personal touch through some colour and fun through the use of pin wheels and plant stakes.
Pin Wheels
These are made from plastic laminate and covered in outdoor UV resistant vinyl, I could have used recycled laminate, but there is a chance that text will show through the light coloured vinyls. Used longer rivets to allow pin wheels to spin and rounded off points with a corner cutter and scissors to give it a more professional look and be less eye poking. Covered bent copper (like one of those BBQ skewers) in white plastic coating to reduce oxidisation, purchased extra strong coat hangers to withstand the gusty wind in our area and hopefully have made these to last a good few years.
Made a total of 4 mini pin wheels for the front yard and 5 large pin wheels exactly in the same colours mainly for the back yard. All of them glow in the dark for a bit of extra fun.
Completed pin wheels.
One large completely glow in the dark pin wheel, to make it easier for my family and visitors to park in line with the fencing even in the dark.
Completed pin wheels.
One large completely glow in the dark pin wheel, to make it easier for my family and visitors to park in line with the fencing even in the dark.
Plant Stakes
Free handed the shapes for my plant stakes using red kohl pencil on some old steel pencil tins, cut them out with tin snips and ground the edges smooth with a electric engraver. If you've been an art student, you would have been told by your tutors to purchase soft pencils for drawing and these often come in tins. The other tin was a box of really rubbish colouring pencils from a pound shop which my mother brought for me. This is the only recycled part of the project, you can of course use aluminium cans instead.
Before: cut out steel shapes in steel container.
Final plant stakes; traced shapes in colourful vinyl, cut and stuck onto tin shapes both sides. Holes punched in position for rivets, cut and bent copper coat hangers into shape. Wire hanger plastic coated in black and hammered shorter rivets to keep complete the butterflies and flowers.
Finished four plant stakes, butterflies are not quite yet finished.
Finished butterfly stake complete with black garden wire, should have centred the antenna, oh well.
