Bobbie Lavely
Spickard, MO

Child's Play Room

When I first saw the items for this round I thought, wings and a jewel,cool, but a camel? What are these people thinking? Then I set to work dreaming up ideas and dismissing many of them. I decided if I could come up with an idea for the camel then the rest would fall into place. At least that is what I thought! Children have always been a big part of my life, having five of my own and baby sitting part-time. So the child’s rocker seat was born. Using the camel I made another one for the other side and adding rockers and a seat. I soldered the seat between the camels and the rockers to the feet. The dimensions are 3 inches tall, 1 ¾ inch wide, and 3 ½ inches deep. Next came the wings. OK, I have the child’s rocker, now what? Yes, now I need an adult rocking chair. Using Pink Champagne glass I cut two sides, the arms, legs and rockers as one piece, using my wet saw to cut the hole. Now I have my first problem. How to attach the seat where there are no solder joints? The solution cut a seat with notches, and then cut matching holes in the arm pieces with my diamond-engraving bit. Problem solved! I cut the small part off both wings and curved them into u-shapes. Attaching the large sections to form the arms of the chair and the smaller one on the sides of the back for a winged back rocking chair. The dimensions are 5 ½ inches tall, 3 inches wide, and 5 inches deep. The jewel was beginning to look more and more like the straw that was going to break the camel’s back! Several ideas floated around in my head, but none seamed to be the one. Then one afternoon while I was driving my son to work the idea of a wagon using the jewel as the handle, popped into my head. I cut four sides and a bottom, then the tongue and support, and finally the wheels. The jewel was foiled and soldered to the end of the tongue for the pulling handle. Four wires were soldered onto the bottom to hold the axels. After soldering, black patina was applied. The axles on the wagon were the next problem. What to use so the wheels would actually work? Wire was to thin causing the wheels to wobble, wooden dowels were too large and heavy. Wondering around the house I saw the box of wooden kitchen matches and thought why not try it! After removing the dangerous end and a bit of sanding, it fit perfect. The dimensions are 3 inches long, 2 ½ inches wide, and 2 ¼ inches tall. I made a table and benches from glass and painted dice as the legs. I also painted dice to resemble building blocks and I painted marbles as balls. Foam board was used for the floor and walls. The floor was painted in blue checkerboard fashion and stickers applied to the walls. All pieces fell together as a child’s playroom.

Glass used:

Other items used: