Do you want to make garden decorations yourself?

I am an enthusiastic gardener and have long been looking for instructions on making garden decorations - especially for birdhouses and garden figurines. I am very skilled in working with stone, wood, and metal - so I am crafty. I also enjoy drawing pictures or carving small wooden figures. Only garden decorations need to be somewhat more resistant to frost and moisture - unfortunately, I am not familiar with this. Hopefully, you can help me in this regard.

My open questions regarding the making of garden decorations are as follows:

1. What should I pay attention to when choosing materials?

2. Do I need to chemically or otherwise treat the material so that it survives the winter unharmed?

No matter what type of garden decoration the advice is for, I am grateful for any message here. Of course, I would be most happy to receive instructions on making birdhouses or garden figurines from stone.

Hello garden gnome,

When decorating your garden you are completely free - you can do whatever you want.
Decorations made of stone obviously do not need weather or frost protection; wooden elements can be treated with wood preservatives or structurally protected from weather influences, for a birdhouse for example by means of a roof covering made of metal or bitumen sheets - although a good paint coating should actually be sufficient.

Since you like to draw, design your own birdhouse, completely according to your design wishes.

Then transfer the walls and roof parts onto plywood, cut them out and glue/nail them together.
By the size of a possible opening (door, window) you can influence which birds can benefit from your little house or the feeding.

I also just did it quite by feel. Mostly I drew a little something and then involved my husband in the implementation ;) I find it nicer anyway when not everything looks too geometric and arranged. We have lots of wildflowers and recently we set up a few feeding spots for the little birds! I am very proud of our garden because everything was created by ourselves. But in summer we also spend a lot of time taking care of everything.