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Thu 16 Jun, 2005 03:09 pm
When Mo and I were at the beach the other day we found about 50 sand dollars. He was estatic! (Actually we found a lot more than that but about 50 is all we could manage to cram into his hat - we weren't leaving without them dadgumit.)
He's really still fascinated with them and has enjoyed carrying them around but he gets upset whenever they break so I'm thinking of shadowboxing them into something along with photos of our excursion if I can't think of anything else.
I'd really like to come up with something a bit more interesting. Something that isn't so hands off.
Any ideas?
How have you preserved unusual or fragile artifacts of excursions?
One thing that is fun is to put it in a... um... aw, what's it called. Acrylic mold? Think paperweight.
I'll see what I can find.
50 of them. You could do some different things.
A simple, fast thing - sorta working up to the acrylic mold - clear nail polish!
sozobe wrote:One thing that is fun is to put it in a... um... aw, what's it called. Acrylic mold? Think paperweight.
I'll see what I can find.
heh, back in the early 70's there was a thing called "Plasticast" - a little kit designed for kids to do things just like this. Millions of butterflys and bees are ensconced in plastic throughthout the dumps of the U.S.
http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/Plasticast.html
Oh some cool ideas!
I'm thinking this might be a good project for him to make for Christmas presents for everyone. I usually give them a photo so I could chose a beach photo and Mo could give them a sand dollar.
I'm not sure if they sell nail polish by the half gallon - we'd need a lot - but it does sound like they need to be sealed before casted. I'm wondering if thinned down Elmer's glue would work to seal them....
Ohhhh. Plasticast!
Nobody dumps that stuff fishin'! Are you crazy? My mom still has the paper mache penguin-ish-kinda-thingy that I made in first grade!
What's that stuff Quinn taught me about?
mm
mmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
ahhhhh
Podge!
It might work for a coating! I don't know if the decoupage coating is airtight but it would be worth investigating.
It's definitely watertight - and it's sold in pretty enormous vats at a lot of craft places (for not much $).
Which reminds me, I've got some of it around here and a kid to entertain in a coupla weeks.
Podge, huh?
I'll check it out. Thanks!
http://www.plaidonline.com/apMP.asp
this is the original version ModPodge
most craft places have a house brand
Yeah, fishin', I saw the link in the first thing I linked to and went "OOOH! PLASTICAST!" I had it when I was a kid, loved it.
Doesn't seem as available anymore, as a kit anyway. Bummer. The implication seemed to be it was highly toxic. Who knew? (*coff*)
Ain't it a miracle that any of us survived what with our poisonous toys and lack of safety stuff?
Imagine what it'll be like for the poor babies 40 years from now.
That reminds me of one of Bill Murrays lethal kids toys on SNL. Like "BAG_O_GLASS".
Just as an FYI, I was talking to Quinn about this thread and she mentioned that she has an aunt and uncle that used to collect sand dollars. She said that if you don't bleach them before you preserve them they will turn to a nasty dark brown color.
Who knew?? Yeash, the things ya learn.
Good to know!
Bleach, seal, cast.
I counted them up as I was rinsing them off and we have 67! I kept the bits of a few broken ones to practice on too.
It was weird to find so many sand dollars. I have only seen so many at once one other time. Even the fat, happy gulls had given up on the bounty.
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