anne_d: (Default)
anne_d ([personal profile] anne_d) wrote2015-06-10 03:23 pm

Shiny Thing Day

Paul is taking tomorrow and Friday off for his annual manly man vision quest aka driving far away vacation. He was planning on heading out directly from work, but decided to drop by to pick up a few things he forgot and/or thought of later. So he did, and he's on his way north to someplace around Coalinga, to spend the night at a motel, then the next few days driving back along the San Andreas fault.

But that's not important here. What is important is that I decided to take a day off (ha, as if) to work on a small shiny thing project.

This is an amulet made from a tea ball. The original/source material/whatever is from Amulets and Talismans by Robert Dancik; it's based on a Minkisi or Nkisi, a medicine pouch native to the area in and around the Congo.

So. Materials: Tea ball, heat-patinaed (lacking a blowtorch, I used a barbeque lighter), headpins, assorted beads (mostly from a mixed bag of old trade beads), special treasures to go inside (heart bead, dice bead, hand bead, tigereye moon, tumbled stones, old marble, quartz crystal, cowrie shell, word charm), 18 gauge copper wire.

Open, with contents

Front view

Back view


So shiny! I think I'll hang it in one of my studio windows.

Then Emily and I ran a couple errands and got takeout lunch for ourselves and Kitty. It's been a pretty shiny day.

Post a comment in response:

If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting

If you are unable to use this captcha for any reason, please contact us by email at support@dreamwidth.org