Decorating your patio can be just as easy as decorating your home. For this particular project, we aimed at creating an exterior play space for a young boy.  To do this Robert chose large cartoon-like plants, plastic hanging beads, synthetic field grass, a plastic, red, and cross-shaped table along with a large red tent for shelter and blue plastic chairs.

- The planters were personalized by modifying ready-made planters. Robert cut the planters in half to create two smaller planters and applied Formica laminate, like you would see on a tabletop.

- Because our theme was centered around a turtle pond, we turned a large piece of synthetic field grass in to the shape of a turtle. To do this we traced our figure on the bottom side of the grass, cut it out, and used the extra pieces upside down on top of our turtle to give it more character.

- We applied synthetic field grass to a few cement stepping stones leading to the turtle by simply cutting out circles and gluing them to the top of the cement stones.

- Multi-colored beads were hung from the large red tent on two sides to give it more flare.

- For the red cross-shaped table, we took a large pre-cut piece of wood and placed a large piece of red laminate over the wood and cut it to that shape. We then glued the laminate onto the wood using contact cement and a weighted roller.

With these few helpful hints, you can create a year-round outdoor area that's just as comfortable and modern as the inside of your home.