Friday, May 9, 2008

Better Than A Gym

And I'm sure it provides entertainment for the neighbors. It took me an hour to get them all in the pen today. Those freaking Easter chicks are devious. I knew they would be trouble. Anything coming from the BBAB is nothing but trouble. The blue one (Sky) got loose in the house. I got all the others into the crate to take them out except for him. He would not be cajoled, he would not be tempted by food, he just wanted to explore the house. Then he did the same thing outside. And, oh no, I believe Tatiana, my beautiful chicken, may actually be a Tony! We'll find out in a couple of weeks. Anyway, as I have figured it up, I paid $25 to join this gym and in two months it has cost me less than $30. I've lost three pounds since we got the chickens. I know that's not much in your eyes, but for me anything is a great accomplishment, especially since up until now nothing else has worked. Maybe I'll just keep the freaking Easter chickens so I can chase them!

So I'm told today is Friday. I have no idea, as usual. I had to ask Ariel this morning. And as it is apparently Friday, I have much to do today. I leave you with a question regarding color and palettes (this is an interactive post). First I must tell you a story. When I was in eighth grade, I had a favorite winter outfit (keep in mind that winter here means 50 degrees). I had a black velvet skirt and a cream turtle neck mohair sweater. I also had wavy, dark brown hair down to my butt. With this outfit, I would tie yarn hair ties (remember those?) around my pony tail and they were pale pink, pale blue and cream. I thought it all looked so good together. I loved that outfit. Of course, in high school, my multi-colored Peter Max jeans took honors as the favorite thing to wear. Anyway, what was your favorite color combination/outfit when you were just a kid? Inquiring minds want to know!

And I almost forgot. I've got 60 pounds of plastic Mardi Gras beads. I have an idea for using them, but if you have any ideas or want some of them, let me know!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Melt down any translucent ones in your oven and make sun catchers. With the opaque ones, make coasters.

Pre-heat the oven to about 200-250(you want to fuse the plastic not burn it). Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Make some cool swirly patterns with the beads. (they will fuse together) Add a u-shape piece of bent wire(be sure it's in the melt zone)this will be the hanger. Place them in the oven(turn on the oven light, you'll need to watch for progress). Once they have melted together remove them from the oven. When they cool, peel off the aluminum foil and hang them from your window or from your porch. If you have a large enough cookie/pizza sheet, consider making a chip/popcorn bowl. Once the beads are fused and cooled, take a large oven proof bowl and cover the outside of it with foil. Center the disk of fused plastic over the foil (smooth side down)and return to the oven, just long enough to slump the plastic to the desired bowl depth. Don't use metallic beads for your bowl.

This is a great rainy day project for you and A, or the next time you're coo-coo enough to host another sleep over.

Be sure to open the windows and vent any fumes that may occur. If you are not comfortable melting plastic in your household oven, use a garage sale toaster oven or your polymer clay oven.

Be sure to show us all how they turn out.

Clara

Anonymous said...

60 pounds of plastic!! Why??
Cat

Bead-Mused said...

Cat
The 60 pounds were left over from Relay for Life. I'm not sure what the girls were doing with them, but I offered to take them. One of the girls took a 30 pound bag to the day care where they all used to work. But Nat and Bree each took bags, and I took them away. I had an idea for projects, which leads to . . . .

Clara
I had the exact same idea, especially since I had seen it on That's Clever a few years ago. That's what I was planning to do, but a lot of the beads are pearlized or AB coated. I'm going to take a bead from those strands and see what happens when they melt. The pearlized ones are black underneath, so that might just look kind of yucky! It will all be a big experiment that won't happen until after seminar!

Hugs to you both!
T

Anonymous said...

That's where I saw it too. :-)

You'll never know until you experiment with them. Keep us posted.

Clara

Anonymous said...

Know I'm a little late with this.. oh well... I had a pair of pale blue hip hugger bell bottom jeans that I wore as often as I could get away with! Also had a pair in a khaki color. Wore them so much they started coming apart. I had a fabulous figure then of course! Also had a red corduroy pant suit with wide leg pants... oh and then there were the blue denim bell bottoms that Mom embroidered... Ah, Jr. High in the early 70's!!

as for the beads -- melty, melty!! ;-D
g