A Magic Wand for Christine
With Barbara's B.O.W.L.S. bowl just sort of happening, figured her daughter could use a Magic Wand.
The idea of using a larger and smaller symbol for Mother and Daughter seemed appropriate, and it had to be of oak. The rest would come as the wand was made.
A trip to take some neighborhood kids to Affordable Treasures ( a "dollar store" filled with all sorts of neat stuff) turned up a small bag of white feathers. Had to get a Cuticle Scissors (very odd use for scissors) to cut out and trim up what I needed , Keeping small, very light feathers from blowing around the shop was interesting. Having drilled little tiny holes for hog bristles in previous wands, drilling a lot of little holes in the wand was easy but took a little time. Inserting the tiny little trimmed up ends of a lot of feathers into all those little holes was also fun. NOT super glueing the feathers to my fingers or my fingers to the wand was challenging.
The dark part of the wand was sanded to 220, dyed dark brown with TransTint "antique maple" and burnished smooth with a curved agate burnishing tool from my jewelry making days. Rubbing wood hard with something smooth and hard produces and nice polished look - without any finish at all. Burnished the handle as well after sanding. A burning wire was used to blacken the grooves top and bottom.
The wand to handle part got a coat of clear lacquer, a couple of brush on coats of translucent pearlescent white water based airbrush paint, a couple of coats of clear lacquer followed by Prisma Color felt tip pen colors - orange, light orange and yellow. Couple more coats of clear lacquer and an attempt to pyrograph two "female" symbols - which didn't go that well - and a fine tip Sharpie did the rest. A couple more coats of clear lacquer sealed everything.
I put off dealing with the top end cap of the wand because it was going to involve some tricky shallow hole drilling to set a cabachon stone in. Couldn't drill the hole 'til I had the round cabachon and I couldn't find one that seemed it should go with this wand.
And then I remembered mother of pearl inlays you find in necks of guitars. Off to Wenrics Lapidary and Jewelry Supplies Store and sure enough they had them. So I bought three cause I couldn't make up my mind which would work best - and picked up a little half drilled oval pearl as well - to go with the Mother-Daughter theme - Mother of Pearl -Pearl symbolism. The feathers - just a reminder to keep it light and for flights of imagination. The red stone on the tip of the wand - an affirmation of the the bond of blood and the strength of family.
