Hello, I have been wanting to make a gazing ball for a couple of years. I have seen them and then lost the pics of the ones that inspired me.

Can you please share your pics again. Thank you!

Teresa in KY

If you use Google Images and type in the key words 'allthingsplants+gazing+ ball' you may find the images that inspired you.

Teresa,
If you type in bowling ball art in the search line in this Garden Art forum, you will get lots of threads listed, all about bowling balls all fancied up and used as gazing balls. This link below probably has the most images showing different ideas. I love the one that @dave and his children covered in pennies, it's beautiful, just as most of the others are. I'm wondering how the pennies held up in Texas weather.

The thread "August Challenge ~ Create-a-ball" in Garden Art forum

i find that i like gazing at money...

I think I posted a picture of the gazing ball I made covered in pennies years ago. I did two layers of pennies so none of the bowling ball would show it was just the look I wanted, then I sprayed it with a clear finish so it would keep the shinny glow of the pennies. I should put it out in the garden once again this spring. I swap out what I put in the garden from year to year to help change it up.

Grouting between the pennies and wiping the excess off would make it extra special and give it a whole other look.

So i have a ball and if I put the beads on it with clear silicon, can I use grout around the stones after they dry? I am wondering if the silicon is compatible with the grout or do I have to use mortar instead of silicone?

I've used both on past projects Frilly. Grout even works on objects stuck to glass with silicon.

OK great, I guess I should have asked too about weathering, I want to leave it outside during the summer and bring it in in the fall, that should be ok no matter which products I use I think? Also do you guys use grout sealer on it after the grout is set, or not?

Look at this globe . . . similar but unique. I love it.



(Found on Pinterest)

me too! Beautiful Becky...

Oh, that is COOL! Makes me wish I had the jar of buttons my Mom collected. She had a quart jar full of all kinds of different buttons.

You can find buttons tins at garage sales

Yes Woofie.

I still do have two quart Mason jars full of buttons I inherited from my Mother after She passed, and Hers came mostly from Her Mother and my Grandmother, 'Carrie Lou' who was an incredible seamstress, quilter, knitter, weaver of fish nets, pine needle purses and still kept up with the fields, chickens, rabbits and my stroke ridden Grandfather 'Taft' all along the way;....and still having an outhouse in Ormond Beach right off Tomoka Road till '67 which our family had settled before Daytona Beach existed!

Gotta' love those buttons! I will pour them out and plunder through them soon...

Its good to have had ya'll make me remember that.

David, my Mom's jar of buttons was all her own collection (she was raised in an orphanage); she NEVER turned loose of a button! (Kind of like me with nuts, bolts, screws and washers...I pick 'em up off the ground and save every one I come across. Nails, too. )

I would love to see a photo of the pine needle purse - Cool!

I'm an inch from being a hoarder to Woofie. I just can't seem to pass any object without seeing a possible use for it...... ...

I wish I had one of Grandma's beautiful purses still Vicki. I don't sadly. She sold so many of her intricate creations that hours and hours went into in the 50's and 60's, and for a pittance to make extra money. They were given to her daughters as gifts, including my own Mother. Somehow they disappeared as the 'girls' didn't find them modern and fashionable enough back then.
Later in life and when Grandma was gone,...my Mother regretted that. I still do................

What a shame David but we're all guilty of that to some degree, huh? Getting rid of things that we shouldn't have. And then we can go the other way, have a whole stash of stuff that should be gotten rid of

Now THAT is a fact Vic. I totally agree.

Hi I am a new member, saw this thread, I have made several mosaic bowling balls for my garden and for friends.