Trowel Owl

Friends and co-workers are always leaving things on my door step or in the bed of my truck.  One day I came home to find several trowels on the front porch.


It took me awhile, but I finally came up with an idea:  The Trowel Owl.  Has a ring to it like the Ginsu Knife doesn't it?  Don't worry though, I won't be mass producing them and hawking them on late night TV.  But wait! That's not all.......if you order now.............   

Found Object Industrial Jewelry

Dwayne Bulla Designs on Etsy is up and running with a lot of pieces still in the work in progress stages. (see link in side panel)

This pendant actually started out as a dresser drawer handle that was cut up and manipulated into the pendant shown.

Once again, you just need to look at things in a different perspective and see the prospects hidden within.  

Ceramic and Metal Ball Flower

Sometimes when opportunity presents itself, you need to act on it. 

Such was the case on this creation.  A local store was having a closeout on these colorful ceramic balls.  They already had a flower print and a hole in the bottom.   I knew they would make a great flower head and the price was right.

All I had to do was create a stem with leaves and a means to insert a part of the stem up into the hole to hold the flower.   NO PROBELM!

As you can see, I designed my signature trowel leaves and attached them to a piece of metal that in it's previous life was part of a yard sign holder.  

Horseshoe Crab

My favorite vacation destination is by the ocean. White sandy beaches, lush palm trees, tropical foilage amd a cool concoction in hand makes me very happy as I'm sure it does some of you as well.


However, sometime during the week you must return home to reality. Your job....your snow covered driveway.....you get the idea.

I like to surround myself at home with memories of the beach so that on the days that I'm stuck in the frozen tundra of the Midwest, I can remember the fun filled days of the sun, surf and sand. This crab is one such item.


He's made from a recycled horseshoe, an old open end wrench, and discarded nails and ball bearings.


He measures about 9" wide, 7-3/4" long and is about 5-1/2" tall on average.


He is perfectly content to hang out on your deck, garden or perhaps by a water feature in your yard.

Hand Forged Heart Hook

Since it is still February, the month of everything red and heart shaped, I thought I would display this heart hook project. 

The heart started out as a piece of flat steel that I traced a heart shape onto and then cut out using a saw. 

After the basic shape was cut out, I heated it in the forge to form the hook and gave it it's finishing touches.   

Truthfully, this was a lot of work for such a small project.  It really made me appreciate the old blacksmith and his talent.   Today this piece would be stamped out on a machine and probably produced in a few minutes.

Find Your Joy

Another creation in the "Junk Metal" words category.

Although joy is a great thing to have, I was reflecting on how many song titles have the word "Joy" in them.

Joy to the World, the Christmas classic is probably on the tip on most people's tongue but I was thinking of  Three Dog Night had the song that began "Jeremiah was a bullfrog". 

While searching the song on Google I found this info on Wikepedia:  Some of the words are nonsensical. Hoyt Axton wanted to convince his record producers to record a new melody he had written and the producers asked him to sing any words to the tune. A member of Three Dog Night said that the original lyrics to the song were "Jeremiah was a prophet" but "no one liked that".
When Hoyt Axton performed the song to the group, two of the three main vocalists – Danny Hutton and Cory Wells – rejected the song, but Chuck Negron felt that the band needed a "silly song" to help bring the band back together as a working unit. Chuck also feels that the song "wasn't even close to our best record, but it might have been one of our most honest."
The song was recorded by Three Dog Night at American Recording Company, produced by Richard Podolor, and engineered by Bill Cooper. Unlike most Three Dog Night songs recorded at that point, instead of having just the three main vocalists singing harmony, the song was recorded with all seven members of the band singing.