The Forging of a Ring of Power

I don't know where these ideas come from. But I got it in my head that I should make the One Ring, I had all the components lying around, so why not?

The materials I had on hand were probably less than ideal. My clay was natural (ie dirt) and 60% dry. I fixed this by putting a few chunks of clay and some water in a plastic bag over night. The result? Paste.

I had several ideas about how I would go about making the ring.

1. Make it in a ring shaped mold
this failed horribly, but I think it's because of the clay I was using. It also may have had something to do with the fact that my mold was made of a bottle cap and candle wax. (You cannot fault my creativity)

2. Pipe the clay from the bag into a circle shape
The clay was too soft and did not hold its shape at all

3. Put tape on my finger and put clay on it
 I couldn’t get the ring off without it crumbling

Unabashed by these failures I decided to utilize what I learned and try again. I put more clay and water (less water this time) together, and this time it turned out better.

Forming the ring on my finger was close to the right technique so I found a lid about the same diameter as my finger, wrapped it in tape, and formed the ring on the lid.

This worked WAY better than anything else I'd tried. However, one the clay dried, it cracked. I filled in the hole with new clay and waited again for it to dry. The patch didn't bond well to the ends of the ring, so I glued it in.

Then came the painting; the first thing I did was prim the ring.

Then came the REALLY tricky part: painting it the right colour. 

It took me several attempts before it occurred to me that the One Ring has a metallic shine to it (maybe because it's metal).
So I went on Youtube to try and figure out how to make matte paint metallic. I found this wonderful lady who told me to use cheap, shiny eye shadow and Modepodge. Well that would be perfect if I had gold eye shadow and Modepodge. So instead I mixed white glue, yellow & brown paint (not pictured), and light pink eye shadow.

 

This is what it looked like once my concoction was painted on:

 

A quick Google search brought up the inscription on the ring. I copied it (poorly) in brown fine-tip marker.

Aaaand it's finished. My preciousssss!

Monkey!

*Ahem*

 Yesterday I was sitting in my room, on the rug, on the floor. And I was thinking, in my room, on the rug, on the floor.  And I had this thought (in my room, on the rug, on my floor) : I'd like to try sewing stuffed animals.

Right after I thought this thought I tried to think of things that I'd like to sew, after about five minutes of thinking (and a bit of Googleing) I decided to try sock monkeys.

I found a pattern and instructions online, Since I didn't have any suitable socks I had to wait until today to start. Almost as soon as we got home from town I got to work. It took me all afternoon, but I finished my monkey, and I must say, I'm rather pleased with my efforts....
I'm thinking Pink Monkey is going to get two friends right shortly, I bought a 3 pack of socks after all ;)

PICTURES!

 I'm not sure what I'm going to name this Monkey, and suggestions?

  (Yeah we are in the bathroom, in my defense it has better lighting than my bedroom and it's dark outside! Also there is a drop of water on the mirror.)