Unveiling my latest creation! Garden decorations! How did I do it, you ask? Here’s the photo play-by-play:
You start with a bit of barn board and some old fencing, thanks to my art friends Preston, who happened to have a barn he tore down, and Vinnie, who happened to want to get an extra piece of fencing out of his yard.I was limited to about a 5 ft. height, mostly because I drive a Toyota Yaris, and while it’s quite the little hauler, it’s not very long. It performed admirably, pretending to be a baby pickup truck, but 5 ft. was all it could go. No matter, that was all I needed.
I gathered 8 of the boards, laid them in my yard and put two screws into each one to connect them to a bracer board across the back. I put another bracer board across the bottom for stability. It pretty much looks like an old piece of fence, and that’s what I was going for: An old piece of fence that I could paint on. Vinnie’s was already fence-ified, so all it needed was paint.
I start with background color, orange for the barn board and a nice turquoise blue for the fence. I’ve totally fallen for this color of blue—it comes as a spray paint by Valspar at Lowes and I can’t find enough excuses to use it. I had them mix the color into an actual flat latex paint, and there are plenty leftovers for future projects!
I have day lilies (at least I think that’s what they’re called) surrounding my backyard. It’s a pretty dreary backyard, full of mosquitoes in the summer if I don’t fight them off, so this year, I’ve vowed to spiff up the place. So day lilies went on the turquoise fence.
The BF and I have planted three raised garden beds in the sunny corner of the yard, and I’ve recently expanded to sunflowers on one side of the garage. The garage is white and just kind of there, so I figured it wouldn’t mind. A large sunflower blossom went on the orange barn board fence, for encouragement to my little plants. 
I leaned both pieces against my garage, and in the strange empty spot on the day lily side, I’ll lean a (probably painted lime green) lattice to encourage the bird house gourd seeds I’ve planted there. If all goes right, I’ll have a very productive, colorful backyard!Thank you Preston Karns and Vinnie Oliveri!
