solder and such...

I unwittingly got myself wrangled into babysitting a neighborhood kiddo from the crack of dawn until after lunch today. Thankfully once his parents where back from running errands they kept the big boys down at their house for a reciprocal number of hours. This little boy is Logan's best friend and is a sweet kid, he just drives me batty because he will do almost anything Logan tells him to do (and I think we've established the fact that Logan can be VERY inventive in his schemes and adventures). The boy is two years older than Logan and in my opinion a six year old should have a little more sense than to go along with what a four year old thinks is a good idea. But that's just me.

Anyway, I must have sounded like a crazed woman when Lynn called home this afternoon because he offered to pick up a Cobb salad for me for dinner and to take the boys to the water park for a couple hours to give me a break. He even took Logan's friend so the doorbell wouldn't ring incessantly! How awesome is that? FREAKIN' awesome if you ask me.

With at least two hours of peace and quiet all to myself, I enjoyed my salad, watched a re-run of C.S.I. and then wandered upstairs to see what sort of trouble I could get myself into.

I recently bought a couple bags of glass blobs to make magnet sets to throw in with thank you notes and orders and such. One bag was the smallish clear blobs and the other was a bag of large bluish iridescent blobs. The small ones work like little champs, the big iridescent ones? Not so much...the iridescent portion of the equation doesn't work so well. You really need to use a plain black and white graphic with them. BUT! All was not lost for the giant glass blobs. I happened to have a roll of lead came with a layer of dust three inches thick in one of my storage closets. Amazingly, I found it on my first try. The crafting goddesses were smiling down on me. I pulled out my soldering iron, chemicals and other tools and then set to work.

I decided to make a sun catcher for my Patsy-Grandma. I laid out a simple pattern with the blobs and then wrapped each one in a strip of came. After each blob was wrapped, I set to soldering each joint and then soldering all the pieces together. Once the sun catcher was completely soldered I treated it with chemicals to age the finish.


I'm digging the fisheye effect the blobs reflect. Would make a good submission for Self Portrait Tuesdays.


I was going to use hemp string and a knitting knobby to make a nice hanger for it...but the crafting goddesses were on break and I couldn't find either one of my knobbies so the hanger is just plain old hemp. It's actually nice that way, adds to the rustic appearance of the sun catcher.