Wheel Genius! How to use wheels and glass for garden art

Wonderful things can be done with a humble bicycle wheel here at Flea Market Gardening.  Bike wheels can be found at flea markets, at yard sales and thrift shops. Dishes and dessert plates are easily found at all these places. No other tools or supplies are needed except a chain for hanging.

Four Fabulous garden projects!

Each wheel holds four to six clear glass plates

Tip: Ask friends for these common discards.

See what these two Flea Market Gardeners have created from glass dishes and bicycle wheels.  Garden art to hang from their trees!:

Bicycle wheel spinners

A craftswoman in our town makes these bicycle wheel spinners and they are a little different than others we have seen.

Bud Light bottles and (I don’t know who makes the green), and I don’t know if you can see, but on the outer rims are flat jewels of the same color. I thought they were brilliant!

Bikes wheels at ‘For the Birds’

Here, t he bottles are fitted right over the spokes and then re-attached. Flat jewels are glued into the outer rim.

Looks good in all blue

Chrome ‘plate’

Teresa Jansen’s wheel easily viewed by her astonished guests

Teresa Jansen says, “This is an idea I got out of a magazine. A wheel from a bike and various glass plates, dessert dishes. I happened to get this from a hoarder down the street.   I just knew he would have one and sure enough, he had three in his backyard. You unscrew a spoke, slide in a plate, and tighten. No glue, no wires, nothing except the spokes to hold them in place.”

Lark Kulikowski’s all blue bike wheel art. It spins, too!

Lark Kulikowski created this blue fantastical tree hanger with a few more items, including a chimney sweep brush.  She says, ” A couple of years ago I started collecting bicycle rims and decided to make a rotating sculpture for year round interest in my yard.  Each side is different.   The blue disks are glass plates.  The center of the ‘flower’ is a chimney cleaning brush.

The other side of Lark’s wheel

‘Gold plate’ in the garden

Pam Stotts’s blue and gold wonder..

Pam Stotts says, “The centers of those plates are cobalt, they are nice plates – very thick.  It needs a piece of blue in the center, but I hate to drill blue.”

Wouldn’t green glass plates be brilliant? ….Get some!

More:

For those who would like another challenging bike wheel project see, Marie’s stained glass garden spinner