Lava and Lumpies

Dear Miss Muse,

Its been a while since I sent the butterflies with salutations, so I thought it was high time I made ammends. I know you like unusual things and shiny things, so I got the Boxed Brownie to make some watercolours for your perusal.

This one I have named after something he drawled in his rather odd southern accent; he claims that he said it was luverly, but I thought he said "lava-ly" (and was attempting to be funny, seeing as the bead is made from cooled lava). He was a bit sniffy at first, but soon perked up when I told him what a great name it was for the pendant.

One of the other things I've been working with is some more of those old glass fuses I have. I put some liquid Fimo in one and baked it to see what colour it would come out; although not completely successful, it should be usable for what I want to do, but it will need a syringe to get it in tidily. I sort of got it everywhere as it dribbled out from under the fuse cap. Mind you, that was my fault as it was a fuse I'd previously baked to try and melt the glue holding the end cap on. Obviously it did melt it a bit, in all the wrong places. Ah well, c'est la vie!

I have this lovely purple wire, and I know you're a bit partial to purple, so I wrapped the fuses in it and dangled some crystals and some little silver lumpies (sorry, Snorty says I have to call them elephants or you won't know what I'm talking about) and voila! They're rather sweet, but in the gift shop they go.

Snorty says to tell the little Master that he's looking forward to giving him rides when he's big enough to hang on to the howdah. I have set the Prof the task of making a special safety harness, although I can't quite work out whether its for Snorty or the bairn...

All my love,

F.

Con-fusing!

Dear Mr Weil,

I was ever so excited when my parcel arrived from you the other day. You know how much I enjoy experimenting, so I was thrilled to acquire Miss Lisa Pavelka's UV resin and those smashing syringes from Mr Polymer Clay-Pit. With Miss Beauty Perfection's glow in the dark purple nail powder also safely in my crafter's kit, I felt certain I could proceed apace with my plans.

A while ago, Miss Emilly gave me some charming little light bulb things (modelled along the lines of those by Mr Joseph Swann, not the thieving Edison) from Miss Lynne at the Altered Element. Sadly, I put them somewhere very safe indeed (although I suspect Snorty may have half-inched them for his own nefarious purposes), so I have purchased some more.

My idea is this: to make some charming earrings that look attractive during the day, but then glow in the dark. There are two potential ways I can do this and I am investigating both. The first involves making my own small beads from glow in the dark Fimo, forming them into the glowing element of the bulb. This should be straightforward enough, so I'm not practising this. The beads were made by wrapping the clay around a thin copper wire, sectioning off small donuts and baking them on the wire.

The other way of doing this requires some practice, and this is where your goods and the nail powders come in. I drilled into some old glass fuses, one at both ends and one only at the top. The one that had been drilled at both ends had a coil of silver wire glued onto it's base to plug the whole after the rest of the wire had been pushed through the top hole (so I could make a hanging loop).

I then attempted to mix the nail powder and the resin in the syringe, which was a bit of a disaster. Never having worked with the resin before, I was unsure how long it would take to cure in daylight and was rather hurried in my actions. I have now confirmed that it takes ages to set unless you have a UV light, so next time I will work at a more leisurely pace. Once mixed (sort of) I syringed the mixture into the fuses, then popped them on the window sill to set. That took three days, so I shall acquire a UV light to make it all happen just a little bit faster.

The nail powder is beautiful, as it also contains purple sparklies, but I just didn't add enough. Also, with the resin taking days to set, the powder settled out, congregating in the base of the fuse (although interestingly, the glitter remained suspended). Slightly disappointingly, it doesn't glow purple in the dark either, but a ghostly lime green. Its a bit tricky to see as the Boxed Brownie complained bitterly at being forced to work in the dark (and there's just not enough powder, as I mentioned before), but I'm sure you get the idea.

But I'm not disheartened! I have some Fimo liquid polymer clay to experiment and I'm not done with the resin yet. Once I refine the technique on the fuses to my satisfaction, I shall progress on to my bulbs. Once I have done that, I shall write again and let you see the finished results!

Please give my best wishes to Mrs Weil,

Yours faithfully,

Mrs Begonia.