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Saturday, February 28, 2009

Bits and Bobs

For some reason I like that term. It's kind of like my mind. Little pieces of this and that are wandering around in there today. Kind of scattered thoughts.


I woke up this morning to another one of those "Now I know what I want to do" stream of ideas. First of all, I am going to call the Glencroft, the "Clockwork Cottage". So many of the Steampunk ideas are built on cogs, wheels and clockworks. I remembered that I have a couple of old pendant watches that still work that might be interesting as wall or stand clocks in the house with a little tweaking. In my own house I have lots of clocks. I seem to collect them unconsciously. They just follow me home and fit themselves in here and there. So Clockwork Cottage, it is.


Now if I could just figure out how to eliminate some of the other categories(Glencroft). I went to layout and then to labels. It will only show me part of the list. There doesn't seem to be a way to get to the rest of it. Does anybody know how to get to the rest of the list? Help!! Admittedly, I need to go through all of the earlier posts and change some of the labels, but I really don't want to start from scratch!

I am currently digging through my different stashes to find bits and bobs for the cottage. I found this bunch of stuff in with my mini fashion supplies. I think that some of it has possibilities. It's just another pile to sort. The two watches on top are the ones that April gave me yesterday. She says that I gave them to her. I am kind of chickening out when it comes to tearing them apart. It seems a shame since they both still work. Oh well, they were Wal Mart's best for around five dollars. That was many years ago. It just goes to show that you don't have to spend a lot of money to get a good watch or at least one that runs a long time. And just think. No batteries to replace!


I have been saving little circuit boards for a while now. I want to design a rug for the house based on one of these. I have made a couple of the smaller ones into earrings for myself. If you study them, some are very pretty. After all, some of that stuff stuck to them is gold. think I am going to have to get my husband to tear apart a few more infernal machines. That's one way to clean out the garage.


Another stash was some slabs of real marble that I bought at the Anaheim NAME national convention. Not the last one, the one in the early 80s. Yes. I have had them that long. I keep saving them for the next project. I think that this might be the one. In the same pile are miniature shells. See that stuff in the corner of the box that looks like emaciated rice grains? Yup. They are shells! I think that I may have to edge a mirror with those. The shells beside the box remind me of turtle shells. I wonder if the master of the house would mind a pet turtle.....


A good Steampunk man has to have his tools and weapons. Consider this the "before" shot. Some of the Steampunk sites have all kinds of fantastic weapons. These all look pretty bad now. With a little spit and polish, they will fit right into the Clockwork Cottage.


It is time for me to stop messing around now and get back to work. I finished the weaving on Carolyn's chair. She wants something kind of "pinky greeny" for the fabric. I am off to see what I can do.

See you tomorrow.

10 comments:

Debbie said...

Casey what a lovely lot of bits and bobs. I'm going to have a look about for some old watches..

TreeFeathers said...

"Now if I could just figure out how to eliminate some of the other categories(Glencroft)."

Do you mean your post labels that are listed in the sidebar? The easiest way to manage them is to go to your "Edit Posts" section of your dashboard, where you see your list of posts. You can click the checkboxes to select posts having a certain label (like Glencroft) and then use the drop-down menu at the top to delete a label or add a new one. :)

Creager Studios said...

Oh Casey...I love all your Bits and Bobs... I can see great things 'springing'(pardon the pun) up from those watch and other parts...
I adore Steampunk anything...never thought of putting it to 'minis'...great idea...I can hardly wait to see your cottage.

Thanks for sharing

Happy Weekend
Jodi

Caseymini said...

No Grace. I am trying to eliminate the whole category from the "Labels" list in the sidebar. I know how to do what you are describing. What I am talking about is the fact that, if you go to "layout" then to "Labels" the list of labels shows up and you can eliminate what shows, but I have more labels than what shows on the screen and there doesn't seem to be a way to get to the ones on that list that don't show. I have too many!

candyn said...

Hi. I am delurking to comment about the watch parts ideas. I had been saving watches for a similar purpose and was surprised at how few parts were inside when I broke them apart. But I found you could buy watch gears on ebay by the ounce for a reasonable cost (due to the popularity of steampunk right now, I think). I have a pretty recent post on my blog that shows me holding the little gears and stuff.

Love your blog!

Caseymini said...

Mommylion, Is Candy really your name? Yes. I went and looked at your profile and saw it in the Question. Cute!

About the watch parts, I know that I can buy parts on line. I was trying for "cheap" first. The two that I got from April were the old wind up kind. They will have lots of gears and wheels. I almost bought an old man's watch that was labeled "60s watch" in my favorite antique mall the other day. It just didn't seem to be heavy enough for the old wind up kind. It was five dollars. I got suspicious and took the back off. Sure enough, someone had replaced the inner workings with a small woman's battery watch. It didn't even fill half of the case! Buyer beware is right! I willprobably resort to the net. Where did you buy that wonderful assortment that you have? I have been looking at some on etsy. I could use the advice as to where to go.

candyn said...

The username of the person I purchased the watch parts on ebay is staci_jill_studios. For me it was cheaper to do it that way, but I don't have an outlet for a lot of cheap watches where I live. And yeah, Candy is my real name, silly, but true. :)

TreeFeathers said...

Regarding your labels, I gotcha now. Here's something to try: go to your layout area, to the HTML tab of it. Copy and save the HTML there, just in case! Then scroll down through all that code, about halfway (after all the actual post info), to where you see:
div class='widget Label' id='Label1'
(It will have little < > things surrounding it, but I had to take them off to get it to post here)

Directly below this you will see a list of all your labels, so you can delete ones you don't want showing up. Just be sure you delete the entire section for that label, that means everything between the "li" and "/li" tags (those mean "list item" - had to take off the enclosing < things again).

I hope these code bits show up right!

Katie said...

Look at all that great junk. Funny....I have some of those 'circuit boards' saved for when I make the Star Wars Toy Store....I got mine from an old printer. And I love the shells....Have you seen the shells I've been playing with this past week??

Oh...and I think Clockwork COttage works perfectly!!!

TreeFeathers said...

Casey, I've got tons of watch parts I can send you! Friend of mine collects and repairs old pocket watches and is always giving me bags full of parts. Email me (info@treefeathers.com) with your addy and I'll send them to you.