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Look what I made!

If you'll forgive a bit of bragging about my crafty exploits...

We had a couple of frames that I thought would work well in Toby's room.  All we needed was something to fill them.  Inasmuch as the room has a theme (we never did get around to decorating the nursery) it's probably insects.  There are a few slightly blurry stencils of dragonflies and butterflies on the walls, left by the previous owners of the house.  So I found some cheerful insect pictures on the internet, and enlarged them freehand from the inch-square originals.  Acrylic paint gave the perfect bold effect.



My sister-in-law Kristal has given us many beautiful sewn items, so for her birthday this year I wanted to give her something handmade too.  I discovered the technique of making pendants from glass microscope slides a few years ago, but after a frenzy of Christmas ornament making, I sort of forgot about it.  It was fun to take it up again, and this is the biggest project I've tackled so far.  When I got halfway through I was beginning to wonder why I'd ever started.  My soldering iron was one of those "ladies' tools" with a pretty pastel handle (yes, I know, but it was all the store had) and it was taking 5 minutes at a time to melt the solder.  Not what you want when you're trying to get fiddly little bits of chain into precise positions.  Finally I went to the store to buy a new iron.  The wimpiness of the old one was underlined when I noticed that one was 25 watts, compared to the 100-watt rating of my new model.  Moral of story: always go for the biggest, meanest tool in the shop.  Men have the right idea on this one.



I will get round to a blog on our recent trip to Virginia soon.  I just sifted through all the photos and don't have the mental fortitude to reduce 185 photos to one coherent blog post right now.  We had a lovely time and Toby was a big hit amongst relations, semi-relations and completely non-relations alike.  More to follow...
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Comments

Sally said…
Can you give me more detail on the microscope slide thing - it looks gorgeous. Cheers Sal
10 July 2011 at 17:49
Kristal Dawn Evens said…
Very cute paintings!!! I love the gift you made for me. I'm still wandering around the house to figure out the best place to put such a beautiful creation!
10 July 2011 at 20:22
Martha said…
Hi Sal, I did a post about it way back in July 2009 (Growing and Making) which gives the basic technique. For the wall hanging I just made lots of 1x3" ones with flower photos and joined them together with bits of chain. I think if you Google "microscope slide jewelry" you come up with some more links.
11 July 2011 at 12:14
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