Wow!  It’s certainly been a while since I posted.  I have a pretty good excuse.  In June I decided to go back to school and finish my bachelor’s degree, this time majoring in English instead of something that held zero of my interest (though, probably would have given me more money-ah well, you win some, you lose some!).  Because it’s an entire semester’s worth of a class in a single month, my free time has been cut down considerably.  Lunch time used to be spent casually knitting with the girls, now I tuck myself away in a dark part of the office and (this month) read Plato and Socrates for my Literary Theory class.

Whew!

That said, I’m pretty excited when the weekend rolls around and I have an entire day to take care of my homework but also babysit my hobbies, such as this blog!

So, let’s talk about this:

Still defeated by stairs. Needs upgrades.

A few months ago, my friend Kim and I were wondering what to get our friend and resident Doctor Who Addict, Val, for her birthday.  Nearly every day I check GeekCrafts to see what’s new and this popped up.  Now, I had no faith in our sculpting skills and was basically dragging my feet, but in a burst of WE CAN DO IT!, Kim convinced me that we, too, were able to roll clay into balls and adhere them to a flower pot.  Though there weren’t step-by-step instructions, we used the photos Jackie put up to show hers off as a model for our own!

First step. Cut a hole in a clay pot. Actually, no. First step: buy four clay pots.  Break two of them.  Be happy you had the foresight to buy extras so a second trip to the store doesn’t turn out to be part of your day.

If I knew anything about power tools I’d be able to tell you, exactly what Kim’s father gave to us to use to make these holes.  You can see that there’s a circular drill bit there, but don’t be fooled.  That didn’t work at all.  Instead, he used a little electric saw and cut slices from the center hole to the rim, and then hit the pieces out with the back of a pair of pliers.  Then there was much sanding using paper and a Dremmel.

At this point, I was super impressed. I didn’t realize we were sliding into four more hours of clay-work.

Those are Kim’s hands.  She’s gluing the base to the pot and basically inverting it so we get the appropriate shape.

If you could hear my brain: Well. I’m going to put clay on this pot. This isn’t rocket science, yet I think I’ll sit here and contemplate it for a few long minutes.

Meanwhile, Kim is being extra productive by making all the little pieces at once, so they can easily be assembled when the time comes. She had all the detail work and me? I stuck things to the pot.

BEHOLD! First layer of clay.

Would you look how at how nifty this is?! Kim made the lid all by herself, including the.. sticky-outy bit. (Don’t look at me, my grasp on this show is flimsy at best.) There was a lot of worry about the clay not hardening enough to support it, but the toothpick she put inside helped a lot!

Time to bake! We used a couple extra things to prop up the more delicate pieces and then crossed our fingers hard until we passed out. Or, until the oven timer went off. One of the two.

I don’t have any pictures of the painting process, which was another several hours, I’m sure.  After it baked, Kim went after it with caulking to take care of any cracks and to make it water tight, and then painted and planted.  I’m actually pretty impressed by the whole thing and, suddenly, making things out of clay doesn’t seem so frightening to me anymore.  I’ve been envisioning an army of green planter-pipes in which to grow piranha plants that spit fire balls.

Still working on the logistics of that last part, though.  I’ll let you know.

C’mon, little guy! Time to meet your Mom!