Repurposed Thursday: The Book Clock

Welcome to Repurposed Thursday!

As I told you Monday, I finally got the clock finished. There were however, a few challenges along the way.

Since my clock spindle was long, I knew I would have to put it all the way through the book, with the battery compartment on the back. First, I couldn't find a drill bit big enough. I know there are wood bits here somewhere, but I don't know where Ed put them. I finally found a bit that would work and drilled through the book. I got the clock all put together, put the battery in, and it worked....for about two minutes. After some trial and error, I finally figured out that the spindle was catching on the paper inside the book. So, I got out my trusty exacto knife and cut an inch square around the spindle. Success!

Now for the mice. I bought some Sculpey clay. I had never worked with it before, but I found it very easy to use, although I still need some practice. My real issue came from the baking. The directions say 15 minutes per quarter inch of clay. Ok, well, some of it is a quarter inch, some is a half inch, some is a sixteenth inch. I set the timer for 20 minutes to see what would happen. Well, they have singed ears and tails, but I think they turned out ok for a first time. I glued one to the top and one to the bottom corner. The latter looks more like a cat than a mouse, but it works, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Here is the finished product. It is hanging over my desk in the office.

The rest of today and tomorrow are going to be busy. Tonight is Betty's visitation, and Katherine has a band concert. Tomorrow is Betty's funeral and our church is providing the meal for the family. I will talk to you sometime tomorrow. I just found a new recipe that I have to try!

See ya tomorrow!

Connie

Repurposed Thursday: Sort of

Welcome to Repurposed Thursday!

My plan for today was to start on a new project and share with you as far as I got, as well as my idea for finishing. Well, I never even got to start, but I'll tell you my plan.

I love the idea of repurposing books that might otherwise be thrown away. I particularly like the idea of turning them into clocks. In a bunch of books I rescued was a library copy of Beverly Clearly's "Runaway Ralph" Well, it looks like Ralph, or some of his relatives, chewed on it, so its not going to make a great clock by itself.

I was at least going to get the clock mechanism installed in it today. My plan is either to make or buy (make is my preference) some mice to go on top of the book and on the tray below. I got the tray as part of my haul from the Goodwill Closeout store, so its cost is about $.88.  Anyway, this is as far as I got. Hopefully by next week, I'll be able to show you more.

Now, the reason I didn't get anything done was because about the time I was getting ready to start, I was talking to Ed about something while he was putting some rather large logs in the wood stove. Suddenly, the stove pipe was on the floor, and smoke was coming out the back of the stove. We both switched to emergency mode (which included praying while we were moving). Thank God for the heat gloves that Ed brought home from work. We were able to use them to hold the pipe while we tried to get it put back in. Still it took about twenty minutes, and probably another twenty to get our blood presure back down!

Then Katherine came in and told us there was no water cold water in the Kitchen sink. There is ALWAYS cold water in the kitchen sink. We keep a heater running in there as soon as the temperature drops below 20 degrees. We have a cistern, so we can't keep our tap dripping. The cold water in the kitchen is where the water comes into the house. Uh Oh!. If that is frozen with the heater blowing right there on it, it must be frozen under the house, and we have no way to get to it! Neat! Ed had already drawn water the night before as a "just in case" measure, so we had that, but it wasn't going to last long. So, we decided we should probably get out and go get some bottled water.

First we had to dig my car out. Thankfully, the snow is the dry powdery type, so shoveling was a breeze, what I got to do of it anyway. Ed saw me shoveling, and took my shovel from me. We got to the store, but our road is still a skating rink. I told Ed that if Katherine had school tomorrow, the bus was not going to come down our road. I would get a call in the morning telling me I had to bring her to the end of the road for the bus to pick her up. If that happened, I would just take her to school. If I had to warm up the car, I might as well driver her the other mile and a half to school.

The second issue, if Katherine had school tomorrow, was the issue of a shower. Well, I didn't want to use drinking water for bathing, so I told Ed we needed to start melting snow of the stove, so we could use it for sponge baths.

I just got the call....no school again tomorrow.   

See ya then!

Connie