Skip to main content

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...
Labels:

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
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions.  The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?"  This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them.  Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone.  That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of.  Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died.  And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was.  His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...
Post a Comment
Read more

Birmingham: Temples to many things

Birmingham's cathedral is overshadowed by more modern temples: the mirrored swirls of New Street train station; the dotted bulge of the Selfridges store; the lacy blocks of the library; the pillars and pediments of the museum and art gallery. Museum and town hall Next to all these, Birmingham Cathedral, in its square of dusty grass, isolated from the main flow of shopping and travel, seems less like a dominant building and more like a minor chapel. It turns out the unpretentiousness is deliberate. St Philip's Church was built in 1715 when the worshipping population of Birmingham had outgrown the medieval constraints of St Martin in the Bullring . Birmingham remained part of the Diocese of Worcester until 1905, when Charles Gore pushed for the creation of a new diocese and became its first bishop. Seeing the depth of need in the city, he decided to convert St Philip's to a cathedral rather than spend money on a grand new building. Birmingham Cathedral had to be restored afte...
Post a Comment
Read more

Southwell Minster, Newark-on-Trent, and a pilgrim cellist

You may remember that I recently mentioned people doing weird and wonderful things. Well, I found another one. Last year, Kenneth Wilson visited all 42 English cathedrals. On a bike. With a cello. It was a cargo bike; the whole setup, cello and all, weighed about 50 kg; and he mostly managed a rate of one cathedral per day, with occasional rest days and train journeys where absolutely necessary. That's a lot of cycling. Of course, he wrote a book about it, and when I found out he was on the schedule at Newark Book Festival, I had to go. It also provided the perfect excuse to visit Southwell Minster. Newark-on-Trent feels like it is in the depths of the Nottinghamshire countryside, but it isn't actually hard to get to, I thought as I buzzed along the dual carriageways of the A50, A453, A52 and A46 on a sunny Sunday morning. All along the route, the grass stood bleached and crispy, scorched by the summer heat.  Newark Castle with crispy grass The author event was at the National...
Post a Comment
Read more