The Amazing Hunt

I just love doing fun organized things and I finally got a group together to do the Vancouver version of the Amazing Race. It's called the Amazing Hunt and run by a guy locally.

For a private group race it was 2 hours. We had 10 teams of 2, 9 stops, 1 break and 4 tasks. There were eating challenges, a puzzle and some questions about places in Downtown Vancouver. It was quite fun and we came 3rd. I definitely can't run! Our friends had fun, and 1st place got 2 t-shirts.

I thought it would be more physically challenging based on the public race which is held several times a year and is actually 6 hours long. www.theamazinghunt.com

chain link wire necklace

I found a bead store that was offering free classes for October. Since I've been borrowing books from the library for ideas, I knew most of the techniques offered already. This was the only one I didn't know. How to use a jig to make chain links with wire.

It was fun, but frustrating at the same time. It took3 hours to make this and a lot of "OMG"'s.

The jig is like a peg board. You space pegs on the board such that you can wrap wire around it to make patterns. All of them will turn out uniform and smooth as opposed to doing it freehand.

Then I had to make other links with pieces of wire and wrapping them to create the links. This was not uniform and the most frustrating part.

However, I can say that I am still happy with the end product. Another skill learned and another necklace and earrings to add to my growing collection.

glass project #3

I got my 3D tile back, and I love it! I can see the imperfections of my 1st try, but other than that, I think it turned out pretty good!

It's called kiln carved glass. It's made with 2 firings. The first is the fusing of 2 sheets of glass, ~ 6" each.

The 2nd step is cutting out a design using 2 sheets of fibre paper. The bottom sheet has the oval shapes, and the top sheet has the triangle shapes. The fused glass goes on top of these 2 sheets in the kiln, and as the glass melts, it "falls" through the holes cut out in the design to give a layered tile.

glass project #2

I made is this slumped 4.5 inch plate. It is made of melted glass chips called "frit" and coloured with green powder. It was flat after the first firing and I had to smooth out the edges and on the 2nd firing, "slumped" it in a mold (made the glass dip in the middle). I'm sure this is not all the proper terminology, but just what I understand. I found this to be a fun and easy project, but would want the glass to be less thick (it's ~ 2 cm) and more slumped (more dipped). If I can figure it out in time for Xmas, I think it would be a great gift.