Use It Up! Wear It Out....

First of all.....Cat report. I can honestly say that Mookie is sleeping comfortably......In my basket of Perle cotton! He's kind of like an old grizzly bear. Where does he sleep? Wherever he wants to. He is doing really well. I think that his weight is going back up now.

I still have the poly clay scattered all over the family room table. Since I don't like to cook just one thing, I decided to mess with it some more.

I was playing with the canes and came up with a couple of purses. I think that these have possibilities. They were fun to do. For the first one(brown) I simply sliced a thick piece off of a cane and pinched the top to form a closed purse shape. Then I stuck a gold finding against the top for a frame. Very basic. You could do this with a piece of solid color if you wanted a plain purse.

For the second one I got a little fancier. I used two slices. Smooshed(technical term) together the bottoms and sides, leaving the top open. Then I put a gold finding on either side. The handle was added with a strip, carefully cut from the striped part of the cane and rolled thinner. Then I trimmed it and put a gold chain link on either end to stick it to the purse. Now I have an open purse that I could put maybe a pair of gloves or a scarf hanging out over the edge. It will need to be cooked before I can add stuff to the interior.

I am thinking that, if I made a plain one, I could add indentations for stitching and make it look like leather. OK....off in yet another direction.....Tessie is scowling at me....

One thing leads to another. I found several balls of wadded up leftovers in the drawer. This is what I do with those. From right to left. First the ball of scraps. Second, a piece of the ball kneaded a bit and turned into a rectangular block. Next, I cut down the center lengthwise and then half both of those pieces. Then I turn them wrong side out. The pink one is an example of what you get. It is called a mirror bead. A lady in Russia thought this one up. When you get them stuck back together, there is a mirror image on each of the four sides.

Next you pierce them lengthwise, or I guess you could do it crosswise too, but then they wouldn't turn on the shaft.

After that you sand them with wet/dry sandpaper(wet). When you finish that, you will have a nice shiny bead and you can string it however you like. The one to the far right above, is a finished one.

I am fascinated with these. They are kind of like the inkblot test. Each side of each bead has a different design and lots of times you can see a face of some kind.


As you can see, I have LOTS of scraps. These are all shoved into an Altoids tin. They just need to be sanded and strung.....When they are sanded, they will be much brighter. Guess which part of the process I don't relish doing?

I think that the sandpaper that I need is hiding in a drawer somewhere.....Maybe I will send Tessie into the messy workroom to search for it. That should keep her busy for a couple of days.

I am going to go bake now. I might even sand some of these if Tessie can find pieces of 220, 400, and at least 600 sandpaper.....

See you tomorrow.

P.S. Katie asked what findings I used for the purses. I answered her in the comments, but I thought that it might be missed if I didn't add it here too. It is an egg embellishment site, but there are lots of things, especially findings that can be used for minis too. http://www.gokart.net/catalogs/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=eggery&Category_Code=onlaycurl This takes you right to the page with both of the findings that I used.