Arts & Cats

Mother's little helper is being helpful.


It's Labor Day weekend in Seattle, therefore it's raining. I could go do indoorsy things like visit museums or see movies, but there's a rock collection that's just been sitting in a bag for months, and I'm in an artsy-fartsy mood. So off I went to Michael's for necessary materials, and now we're making progress towards a display case.

I figure I'll torment you lot with the details, just in case anyone's got rocks needing a home and you don't want to buy some boring ol' case.

We begin with a cheap-ass aquarium from Petsmart, and styrofoam pilfered from my twin window fan. Apply mini-hacksaw and some glue, and within an hour we've got a form:


Don't attempt this at home unless you have a vacuum cleaner, by the way. Otherwise, you will never ever be able to clean up all the styrofoam dust.

Looks like crap, don't it? The cat's a little skeptical at this point:

But this is why we have CelluClay, my darlings. Put it like this: it's paper powder for the making of clay-like papier-mâché. No icky gluey stuff need apply. All you do is knead in some water et voilà, you can mold a fake stone slab.


Now comes the super-exciting waiting for it to dry so that it can be sanded, painted and stuffed in the aquarium. Then I have to build the shelves that will go over it. I still haven't decided precisely how I'll design them, but stick with us and we'll get there. Just wait till you see what I have planned with colored sands and stuff.

I know. You can hardly wait, right?