Eliminate Grey - How to Paint Brick and White Mortar to Beautify Yard and Garden

Garden State

Just like one man's ceiling is another man's floor, one man's junk can be another man's treasure. Sometimes just a little effort can convert something seemingly useless into an attractive object of beauty and function to create an individualized outdoor paradise, however large or small that may be.

Check out some of these frugal suggestions to beautify an apartment balcony or green spot because, after all, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. The color green has been proven to create a sense of repose and well being. So let's create some lovely green space econmically and and have some fun while doing it!

• Old rain gutters are usually chucked as soon as they begin to warp. Surprise - they may be converted to the hanging planters of your dreams.
• Simply drill holes and fasten hangers to the slim little planters-to-be.
• Fill them with herbs - like oregano, thyme, mint (nothing too heavy) or use them as unusual flower pots.
• By varying the length of the hangers, the rain gutters will give a stair-step look and seem to hang in mid air. Get creative and make a look that can only be described as original.
• The rain gutters can be painted in a fresh new color or left their aqua-greenish grey color. Alternatively, they can be an art project for your kids to decorate them as they feel fit with hearts, flowers, fish, happy sun faces, Spiderman and whatnot.
• It's never too late to be a hippie! Recycling is especially cool when you see how much it would cost to buy a new hanging planter. (Ay yi yi...)

Use a rectangular shaped sponge to "stamp out" brick shaped designs on your dull and boring concrete sidewalk. This French paint trick was called tromp de'leil, or "fool the eye" and it's as effective as it's ever been.

How is it done?

To the left would be a "real" potted plant, on the right would be its twin brother, only painted on the wall. In this case, it's all fake, but the optical illusion does the job.

In this case, the brick colored paint a look of a gently winding garden pathway leading you to a destination unknown. How to create it? Buy and mix red and brown paint to get the ideal shade of paint. Working in rows, alternate the brick design and keep working backwards until you are done.Try to keep your rows even.

Voila! Beauty at a very small price!

Take an old rake - the oldest and rustiest one you can find - and hang it on the wall, inside or out. It can be a great organizer for other tools, like broom, hedge clippers, and so on.

Disassemble a worn out ladder for a makeshift fence for your garden. Using the wooden steps as a "white picket fence", it can be left as it is, painted, or used to weave plastic strips between for a basket weave look.

Uglier than sin old plastic planters from the 1970s and before can be decorated with paint and seashells to spruce up the exterior. The larger ones can be used for palm trees seedlings or great flower pots.

For vegetable garden start ups, old tin pots from canned peas, peaches and the like can be saved and used for paprika and tomato seedlings until they are well on their way to being fruitful. They make a nice edging around a concrete planter where they'll get the air and sun they need while making your garden nicer to look at.

Other baby seedings can be raised in a window during the late Winter / early Spring. Old yogurt cups are great for a test drive of new seedlings. Fill half with soil mixed with a good soil enhancer, like Miracle Grow, and push a seed or two under the surface with a drop or two of water. Not all will sprout, so the more the better. I do about twenty seedlings of each plant that will eventually be transferred into the outdoor garden.