Welcome to The Smiling LiMe. A place where you’ll most likely find me and Lisa all dolled up in our finest paint clothes; knee deep in some sort of fun project. We are ultimate do-it-yourselfers, and we have an immense amount of fun doing it! ~ We also have so much fun advice and wisdom to share with the next generation (or anyone who wants to hear it) So grab your favorite drink and come join the fun!
A few years back, We created borders around our plants using beer bottles. We had everyone saving their brown. green, and blue bottles for the project. We had leftover bottles we had forgotten about until Lisa and I were pilfering around the back 40 for some goodies to salvage for our Margarita Bar. It was an instant no-brainer for both of us: a bottle tree it was!
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These were some dirty bottles!
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But they cleaned up nicely!
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The bottle tree looks great next to our Out door Margarita Bar!
A concrete thingamajig, an old serving tray, an old bowling ball, some flat marbles, grout left over from another project, and voila! We got this beautiful garden art!
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We used tile adhesive to put the flat marbles on the bowling ball. We sanded the ball first so the adhesive would have something to grab to. Welet it sit until the next day, then grouted. The ball just sits perfectly on top of the tray center. Now to plant some more flowers around it!
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Dennis saved this old cast iron pot that was bound for someone's trash. (Gasp.)
Around here folks, we use our cast iron! Lucky for me that Lisa's husband Dennis, is a fellow hoarder. We call ourselves collectors; but if you take a walk around our properties, you'll see we are really organized hoarders. We love old things, fun and quirky things, and of course free is always good!
So we took this rusty old cast iron pot and got to work.
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It looks bad, but we know it just needs some TLC!
Some salt, a potato, a scraper, some oil and heat, along with a little messy elbow grease, and we'll have her looking great in no time! Oh, and let's don't forget some music and coffee (only because it's too early for a Margarita.)
The rust is scraping off of this one fairly easy!
Lisa is giving it a good salt scrub. The potato's oxalic acid, and the abrasiveness of the salt create the perfect non caustic solution for cleaning cast iron. If the rust is really extreme, I have used a potato and baking soda. It works great too!
After one rub down with oil, old gal is now on the fire. We get the pot extremely hot. Let it cool, then if necessary, give it another oil rub and firing. Do this as many times as needed, until no rust comes off the pan and onto your cotton cloth.
We think the effort is well worth the reward!
Stunning!
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We hope you'll give it a try folks.
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