DIY Garden Ideas On A Budget

This little spot has become a favourite for a cup of tea in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening.  I wanted to add an outdoor art piece that could stand up to the weather all summer, and add a little more personality to the space.

We started out with some leftover MDF.  We cut it to an 18″ x 18″ square size.  You could use any wood you had on hand, like a board cut to size or a piece of plywood.  Next we painted it with some outdoor paint, to make it last longer outside.  For hanging, we screwed in two screws about 1/3 of the way from the top of the board, and strung some wire between them.

You can find my cut file for this sweet garden art here for free.  I didn’t want my art to look too country or dated, so I chose a font I thought was more up to date, and also set it in the corner for a more modern look.  

We used Iron-on Vinyl for this project.  You could also use the Premium Vinyl, or the Outdoor Vinyl if you prefer.  That’s one of the great things about the Cricut, there are lots of material options that work on multiple surfaces. 

Remember when you’re working with the Iron-on Vinyl to mirror your text before cutting out.  Once the words are cut and weeded, refer to the Cricut heat guide to determine the settings for ironing on your Vinyl.

Once the piece is cool to the touch, remove the backing and enjoy your finished piece.  The place where I hung my art is quite sheltered, but if the spot was more exposed I might add a clear polycyclic top coat to help protect it against the elements.

DIY Budget Garden Markers

The next project I worked on for our DIY garden ideas on a budget, were these easy garden markers.  They’d be great for veggies, herbs, or flowers.  We used them in our cut flower garden section.  The seeds are all in and now we’re just waiting for them to pop up.  Here’s how we made the DIY garden markers.

Materials:

• wood garden markers
• Premium Vinyl, permanent, black
• Cricut Maker
• label cut file here
• Cricut Weeder
• Easy Press
• Easy Press Mat

How To Make Cricut Garden Markers

I picked up some blank wood garden markers at the dollar store -making this a really budget friendly project.  I chose to leave my markers as unfinished wood, but you could paint them with some outdoor paint first if you wanted to.  If you couldn’t find any wood garden markers, old paint sticks would work well too.

I used Cricut Design Space to create the text for the garden markers using the font Cricut sans, font size 50, to fit my markers.  Once you have all the plant names added to your file, you’re ready to cut them out.  Remember with Iron-on Vinyl to place it shiny side down on the cutting mat, and mirror the text before cutting.  

Once the labels are all cut out, cut them into individual words, and weed them using the weeding tool.  

To iron them onto the wood garden markers, follow the guidelines in the Cricut heat guide.  The times vary based on your material, and also which easy press, and mat you’re using.  I preheated the wood for 5 seconds, then pressed the Vinyl for 40 seconds at 300 degrees F.  Once the piece is cool enough to handle, remove the backing.

I love how these garden markers turned out, and I think I might buy another pack of them to add even more labels around my garden.  They’re really simple and easy to read from a distance and they look really professional.  I also love that they were very inexpensive to make.

Personalized Garden Pots

I love adding pots of flowers and herbs to my garden space.  It’s so budget friendly to grow you own herbs to use in cooking too.  I thought it would be fun to add a little more whimsy to the herb pots with these fun says.  

We actually made these simple concrete pots ourselves with some leftover concrete from this DIY Outdoor Concrete Table project.  We had a little left over concrete mixed up, and instead of wasting it we found a few old containers -like a bin some nails came in, an old food container, and used them as moulds for these pots.  

To personalize them I created the “mint to be” and the “tale as old as thyme” labels in Cricut Design space –click here for the free mint cut file, and here for the free thyme cut file.  For this project I used Premium Vinyl, since it would be too difficult to use the easy press for a curved surface.

After cutting out the sayings and weeding them using the cricut tools, use transfer tape to apply the Vinyl to the garden pot.

These will apply well to any flat smooth surface.  They look great on the concrete, but would also work well on terra cotta, or painted terra cotta pots.

These little pots add a fun bit of whimsy to the space.

Last year I had some issues with my mint in my main herb bed.  It’s a pretty aggressive little plant and wanted to take over.  I knew this, and had purposely planted it in the garden still in its plastic pot to contain it.  But it grew out the bottom drainage holes and managed to spread. This time we’re not taking any chances.  Hopefully it can’t escape from the concrete pot with no drainage holes.

These three DIY garden ideas on a budget, were really fun to make, and really inexpensive.  I love how I can use my Cricut Maker to add personalization and character to my garden.

With outdoor spaces on a budget, life really is a party!

This post is sponsored by Cricut.  As always, all opinions are my own.  Thanks for supporting the brands that make Life is a Party possible.

You might also like our How To Make A Portager Garden post here.

Also check out our DIY Stamped Spoon Garden Markers here.

You might also enjoy Teacup Fairy Village Gardens here.