Thursday, August 22, 2013

Four silver wands....

Whew!  It is so hot and humid here.  Just last week, we had 3 lovely cool nonhumid days.  Glorious. Then the humidity came back and brought the heat with it.

Can you believe summer is marching so fast?  I find that this summer is the time I've needed to continue getting well.  I can now sit and concentrate for periods of time that are longer than normal.  I am also getting my interest back in my activities and hobbies.  I am still struggling with balance and do balance exercises for that.  So it's coming along.

I started the wands.  I was going to make a wand for one of the quads.  But it was so fast and easy, I went and make 4.  Fast work.  Instant success!

My thought was to put a faceted gem on the end of the wand.  First, I went to find beads.  I saw these beads for $5.  I had a 40% coupon.  You can see all that I got for that price.  There are several different shades, too.  They had another card of these in different colors.  I may have to get them just to have them on hand.  I usually find something wonderful and then, Presto!, no one has them anymore.  Notice they are silver trimmed.



 
You can see the silver trim better here and the facets.
 
 


Then I went to the dowels and tried the gems on for size.  It's funny how you think one dowel is the perfect size and when it's checked, it's too big or too small.  I found the exact size!  How often does that happen?  I bought 4 of them (36" in length) at 59 cents each.

I wanted to paint them silver and found Martha Stewart's Metallic Silver paint.  Wow! It's great. It does cost a bit more but only needs one coat.  And no finishing coat of poly for shine.  Nice.  However, the light doesn't show the shiny silver!  I painted almost the entire length of the dowel.






















I then cut the dowels into four pieces at 3.5 inches each.  I dabbed silver paint on the one open end.  And then I used E-6000 glue to affix the gem to the end of the dowel, I mean, wand.

I didn't push the dowel up all the way so I drizzled some silver paint into the hole at the top of the wand.  Nice finish.

And here are the 4 wands.  I think I will embellish the wands further but I am thrilled at the finished product. 


So, it took me no more than 30 minutes for four of them.  This does not include drying time.  I do a step and then walk about doing other things.

Let me know what you think!  Hopefully, tomorrow I'll see you again.

Until then....

Pat





2 comments:

  1. I think they are lovely, the beads are fantastic,

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  2. Hi Pat,
    That is a very effective and simple way to make wands. the look lovely.
    Big hug,
    Giac

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