process: endurance

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[ In a clearing in the woods, a folding chair sits at a small wooden workbench. The bench holds a scattering of items, including a rusty piece of metal and a white plastic water bottle. ]

What a lovely place to ACTUALLY REMEMBER TO TAKE PICTURES WHILE I’M WORKING.

Laura wanted ‘endurance’ for this piece, & it only took me two tries to get the right thing. (See the current fairy home decor pieces for my first attempt.) What’s more enduring than a rusty piece of metal & some beads made out of rocks?

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[ Sitting on the workbench: a rusty strip of metal, maybe an inch and a half wide and a couple feet long, and belt into a rough oval. Also eight oval beads in varying tones of pinky-grey, and a similarly pinky-grey hexagonal rock an inch across. ]

I mean, okay, sure, lots of beads are rocks, but these are, like, not GEMSTONES, just ROCKS.

The rusty metal piece was just too much, so I cut it down some, and folded the cut edge flat.

[ The strip of metal is in a rough U shape, with one end of the U extended horizontally back over the U. ]

Of course there’s always gotta be a spiral.

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[ A spiral of thick copper wire sits on a jewelry anvil, next to a small jewelry hammer. The spiral has been hammered flat and textured. ]

The lil holes in the strip gave me Ideas.

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[ The copper spiral sits in front of the right side of the strip of metal. The copper wire it’s part of then goes through a hole in the strip, dips in a shallow curve over to the other side of the strip, goes through a hole there, then wraps back around itself a couple times. ]

Once I’ve made a loop, I gotta hang something from it.

[ The hexagonal rock — it’s sort of a pinky-purple in this light — has been wrapped in thinner copper wire, and is hanging from the loop. ]

There was a third hole at the bottom of the rusty bit, so I hadda do something there, too.

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[ A rough V of copper wire goes through the hole near the bottom of the strip. Both ends go up to the wire above, and are fastened there by thinner wire. One of the oval beads is suspended between the arms of the V, near the bottom. ]

Then it’s just a matter of putting the rest of the oval beads somewhere.

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[ Three more of the beads have been placed along the horizontal bit of wire between the tops of the V wire, again held in place with thinner copper wire that wraps over each one. ]

& some more of that.

[ The other four beads are strung on yet more wire, that leads up from the last three beads, and attaches to the top of the rusty metal strip, right below the hanging hook. ]

… yeah, that’ll do.

[ The finished piece — the rusty metal strip, adorned with copper wire and a bunch of stone beads. ]

She’d better like it, or I’m gonna cry.

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