Iron Craft 12: Wanna Get Lucky?

I don't have a good luck charm.  I pray when I want "luck".  So, when Iron Craft issued this challenge, I was actually pretty stumped. Most of these challenges, I've had more problems narrowing what I want down to one item, but with this one, I really struggled.  I thought about doing something with the cross, but couldn't come up with something that I liked.  I thought of a Wordle or Word Cloud.  I thought of doing something printable, and actually had a quote picked out Monday night.  But I struggled with the design that would go around the quote (I'm not a graphic artist, I wish I were!).  So while I was Googling luck I ran across a reference to the Felix Felicis potion in Harry Potter.

So I found a small bottle and was planning on painting the inside gold and decorating the outside.  But, when I opened my gold paint, I discovered that it was all dried out.  So, change of plans!  I decided to just decorate that bottle instead.  So I glued some ribbon and sequins to it.




After this challenge and the Time Turner challenge, everyone's going to think I'm obsessed with Harry Potter, I'm not really.  But I do like the books and my daughter's reading them right now, so they're on my mind. Maybe she'll want to play with this once she gets further along in the series.

My Time Turner

In Harry Potter, Hermione used a time turner to go back in time and take twice the number of classes as everyone else. Ever since I read about her Time Turner, I've wanted one.  Just think, I could craft what I want, craft with the kids AND work full time.  Almost as good as cloning myself (maybe even better since *I* would be the one experiencing it all).  And working in the software industry, where we're always struggling to meet deadlines, it would definitely be useful!

So, when Iron Craft announced challenge number nine, "And the Oscar goes to..." where we're to craft something that reflects a movie that is special to you.  The Harry Potter movies immediately came to mind, but I tried to think of something else (since they used that as an example).  Is it really a "craft" to paint my stapler red like the one in Office Space? How can I create an entire planet on a giant holodeck like in Star Trek Insurrection?  The first movies my husband and I ever saw together were the Indiana Jones movies, could I do something from those?  No matter how much I thought about it, I kept coming back to Harry Potter.  I thought about Mrs Weasley's clock and some day, I might make one, but I couldn't find a cheap clock to cannibalize on short notice.  So I ended up back at the Time Turner.

The book doesn't say much about what this Time Turner looks like, other than it has a small hour glass and was gold.  I envisioned something smaller than what's in the movie figuring she had to hide it all semester under her robes.  But I could not come up with a way to make an hour glass that was small.  I was going to try glueing two clear glass beads together, but I couldn't find any that were clear, shaped the right way and hollow.  So I ended up having to make a faux hour glass by wiring two pony beads together.  Originally I was going to put glitter in them so it would move back and forth, but the glue wouldn't hold them together tight.

So, here's what I did:
I took two clear pony beads, ran an eye pin through them.  both ends of the eye pin were fastened to a small gold ring.  Then, I took a piece of 20 gauge wire wrapped it around the center (between the two pony beads) and then around the small gold ring as well, leaving the ends and fastening on a small bead at both ends.  These ends need to be long enough that they'll extend past the sides of the larger circle.  So, I have something looking like this.



Then, I took the piece with the pony beads and placed it so that one end is in front of the larger circle and one end is behind the larger circle (with the beads outside the circle) and I wired it with 32 gauge wire.  To do that, I took a segment of wire (about 8 inches or so) found the middle, placed it at the joint and repeatedly made an X over the front of the joint, then I did the same for the other side.  The idea here is that the smaller circle will be able to pivot inside the larger circle.



Next, I took some seed beads and strung them on one of the tails that was left and used the other tail to wire that string of beads around the outer circle.  I ended up having to do this with both sides to get the full circle covered.  Here's how it looked when I finished.



I don't have a gold chain to put it on right now.  I'm kind of hoping that someone else makes one for this challenge so I can see what they do for the hour glass.  Now if someone can tell me the proper enchantments that I need to get it working, I'd appreciate it!