Meet Stanley!

July 9 2017,

This is Stanley. I found and bought Stanley in a yard sale for $30.00 in the beginning of May. The guy whom I bought it for was happy that Stanley was going away for a long vacation because his wife didn't want Stanley anymore at their house, thus the phrase, "Happy Wife, Happy Life". And I'm happy because I found him.

Stanley first came to us as a rusty peacock. He wasn't too bad, but he needed to be cleaned up a bit.

The clean up wasn't too hard. It required a wire brush on a drill, 100 grit sandpaper (you can use less if you want), Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Primer, Rust-Oleum Gloss Protective Enamel color of your choice, and some elbow grease. Not much elbow grease is necessary, just a little. If I can do it, you can too.

So here Stanley is in the box right before he is spray painted. I put him in the box so that the paint doesn't go far. It wasn't a good idea. We ended turning the box upside down and Stanley sat on top of the box while he got "groomed".

Below is Stanley's tale. The tail came apart which made it really easy to clear the rust.

Here the tail is being sanded with a drill. Not much to it. Hold the drill and the drill does the work.

Here Stanley is again inside the box getting ready to be primed.
Note to self. Read the instructions on drying time before spraying. We did this in a matter of 5 days. The timing could have been cut into half if I had read the instructions on the drying and recoating time. If you are in a rush - You could get this all done in a day!

Here is what Stanley looked like after he got the first coat of primer sprayed on him.

Here is his tail after the second coat of primer.

Then we spray painted his tail and his body. Sorry I forgot to take pictures.

Well why the name Stanley you ask? He was bought during the Stanley cup, yes we do enjoy watching ice Hockey.

Hubby says his eyes needs to pop out more, we'll work on that.

As we started on Stanley, another project came into play a few days later unexpectedly. These are also metal yard art. We got these from a publishing company who was moving. They wanted to donate their magazines and books to the guild. So when hubby and I went to pick up the goodies, hubby saw these two flower thingys. He asked if they were getting rid of them too, and they said we could have it. Ta-dah. Another addition.

We didn't create names for these - they are just flower 1 and flower 2. As Stanley sat in the background to dry, I cleaned the rust off of these flowers, primed it and then colored them.

Below is the result.

Pretty aren't they? Now we have flowers all year round.

These three yard art will join Bo, who we've had since spring of 2014. Bo is still red and happy. Do something fun!

Quilt & Bitch

Meet Bo!

April 10 2014,

This is Bo. A bird made out of recycled rake, shovel, rebar and other found object. No, you silly, I did not weld this yard art - instead I found this at an estate sale last weekend for $38.00. My top price for this was $50.00, so $38.00 was a slight bargain. As I was waiting in line to pay for Bo, another lady came in and asked where this sculpture was. The estate sale organizer had posted pictures of things on the website. Somehow she realized that I had it and was about to pay for it. It looked like she really wanted it, so I offered to sell Bo to her for $125.00, she refused, rightfully so.

Bo was a bit rusty around it's eyes and back. Other than that, it was in great shape. I like the paint job that was done on Bo, but I knew I did not have the patience to cover all the parts individually to get the multi color look. I settled for red.

 

 

After a little bit of research, I figured out what I needed to clean Bo up. I went to Home Depot and purchased a three wire brush and Rust-oleum Primer and Rust-oleum oil base spray paint. I already had the larger wire brush and sand paper. I used 100 grit sand paper. I think out of pocket for the hard ware was just under $10.00.

 

With the wire brush, I took off the loose paint, and with the sand paper, sanded Bo. 

 

 

 

 

After the sanding was done, I primed Bo with the Rust-Oleum rusty metal primer. As always, please read the directions on the can before starting. Also, cover your work surface before spray painting.

 



After three coats of red spray paint and four days later (drying time) - Bo is done. It now sits in the end of the driveway to greet visitor's into our driveway. Hopefully I did a decent job that it'll last for a few years.

 

 

Quilt & Bitch