Denise Dennstedt
Circle Pines, MN

Noah's Ark

Most of the animals are safely tucked inside for 40 days and 40 nights. The last ones to arrive before the ramp is pulled up are the alligators and sea turtles.

After throwing out several other ideas I decided on a Noah's Ark night light. The camel was my biggest obstacle in making a decision on what to build. Designing of the ark started with looking at tons of pictures - I kept going back and forth over squared or rounded for the bottom of the ark. The original ark had squared ends so that's what I went with. The boards for the bottom of the ark were cut from a bumpy textured, brown streaky glass. The ramp was made from the same glass, only bumpy side down. A night light fixture was wired into the base of the ark before adding the floor. I secured the light socket into the floor by inserting it into a rubber piggy bank plug that fit into the hole in the floor.

The house part of the ark has a barn door in the front for the animals to easily enter and find safety from the weather. The walls are made from a tan streaky opalescent glass. The barn door is made from dark brown waterglass. The windows are orange Uroboros glass with wire overlay for the wood dividers. There are two windows on the front, two on each of the sides and four across the back. The glass in the roof, which didn't show through in it's true color in the pictures is a deep red/brown streaky Spectrum glass. The flashing on the top of the roof was cut from a sheet of cooper. The ventilation holes in the copper were made using a decorative paper punch.

The camel, along with his mate and the other pairs of animals were painted with enamel paints and strategically placed about the boat.

The orange jewel and the filigree wings were used to make the female parrot. I used a small humming bird body for the body of the parrot. I melted off the belly of the bird to make room for the jewel. The beak was cut back and filed roundish to resemble a parrot's beak. The wings were cut apart with the roundish part used for the wings ant the longer part used for the tail feathers. A second jewel, red (because the male is always a brighter color), and another pair of wings were used to make a mate for her. They were both painted with enamel paints and placed on the roof.

The difficulties in making this project:

Finding pairs of animals that were close to the right size. Making a hip joint roof. Punching through sheet copper with a paper punch ( I ended up putting it in the vise & cranking it down till it punched through). You can't cut a lead casting with a dremel cut off wheel - (I used my soldering iron to melt the bird body off). Painting. And of course, taking pictures that depict the true colors and only 3 of them to boot!

There are 159 pieces of glass in the ark. It measures 12"wide x 10"tall x 8"deep + 4 ½" for the ramp. All in all this was a fun project!

Good luck to everyone!