What do you Know?

Q: What does a Slinky, a PET bottle and ribbon have in common?


A: A YARD SPINNER

Click to enlarge

I had all those PET Beads...Not exactly charm bracelet material. I thought maybe the art teacher could use them for the younger kids at school for embellishing...I mean How many times Have you seen macaroni used as beads, right? But in the mean time I thought this would be a good use for a few for me.

My youngest grandson had a metal slinky that lasted all of 6 hours ( If that) My daughter asked me If I wanted it after it was all twisted and tangled and at first i said NO. But after about an hour I had this nagging feeling to go rescue it, ( Ah the packrat on my shoulder) so we ripped open the trash bag and fished out this tangled mess of wire. I took my heavy duty metal snips and snipped it down to a few coils at a time, discarding the stuff that could not be saved ( not a lot). I have tons of ribbon and ribbon remnants that my craft store was selling...A bag of remnants for a dollar...yup a whole buck $1.00 Cha-ching!

After drilling holes in the ends with my NEW hole punch for metal I took E-6000 ( the one with the small metal nose) and stuck the nose into the bead and gave it a small squirt to hold the bead in place. I did this around the coil. Then I took some ribbons ( about 6) and gave them a small tack with needle and thread to hold them together.

I wrapped some silver copper wire around the end and came up with a loop.

I attached Fishing spinners to each end.

Attached the ribbon.

Used 30 LB test fishing line to attach the other end to the tree limb and .....

VIOLA SPINNER!

Pics of Bead Spinner and My first Earrings.

Earrings I made AND Assembled...Since the assembly usually takes me forever.





Ready for the Kiln...LOL My Oven!


They are pastel swirls, which is a cane that I couldn't do anything with, so I twisted it and made pretty beads.


Also some Peach Swirls, which are a bit of pink mix and a little bit of left over orange mix twisted together.


Some Tiger Chips. Similar to the blue ( see above) but with an impromptu cane I put together the other night. It looks like my tiger lilies I have outside.

Beads made with the tiger skin cane.

And Finally....... Tada....

MY BEAD SPINNER!

Remember that coffee basket I told you about? I covered the bottom of the basket with white card stock and used my clear shipping tape around the side. I put a skewer in the center and plugged it with poly clay then used tape to cover the clay and the skewer edges ( near the hole).

You can see the Lilac beads left in the basket. It isn't perfect, but it beats stringing them one bead at a time, especially when I need hundreds of them to make enough petals for a Hyacinth.
It could use some work. Such as maybe a piece of thin cardboard rather then card stock which tends to catch the sharp point of the wire. I'm thinking packaging like cereal boxes or something.
I found that once I get it going though it is great. Perhaps the double stick tape on the backside rather then tape on the facing.