“Mom, why do you have a jar of dust?”

“That’s the birthday present I made for your friend.”

Wish I had my camera to catch the look she gave me.

How could I go wrong with a detailed how-to for a cute Mini Folk Charm Necklace? For a while I’ve had the 1/2″ miniature vials that I’d need, so I set them aside.  I figured that would be the hardest of the supplies to get my hands on, so a week before the expected birthday I headed out to the miniature store to pick up some miniature grass and people. I should have known better.  Sure they had N-scale people – but only the Civil Servant and Sitting sets - not what I had in mind! I moved onto the next aisle, thinking that at least there’d be grass I could use – and there was not.  Not the cute, bright green grass I saw in the original project.  I was suddenly starting from scratch and stubbornly determined to make this project work.

Next stop, giant warehouse home improvement store for outdoor grass carpet samples.  Hole-punching one of those just gives you big, shiny green stuff that looks like minced Easter basket filling.  No good.  Then I remember that I know someone that works with miniatures and sent out an email, looking for grass.  Very awkward, but at least he knew what I was talking about.. .and all I needed was a teaspoon of it.  More awkward asking my husband to please “pick up a plastic lunch bag filled with grass” for me on his way home from a meeting.  Not the cute, bright green I was looking for – but hey, grass is grass, right?

Now to figure out what to put inside.  I’d make a person, of course! Because I think I can do anything, I go searching for the air-drying clay I have stored somewhere in my basement… only to discover that it’s already dry! and hard as a rock.  Great!  I’ll just carve it.  To 1/2″ size.  I tried, really.  Now, the carving knife could have led to an even worse disaster, but I’m proud to say I didn’t even get a nick.  Instead I just got a little stump of a mushroom.  That I quickly colored in with a permanent marker and white correcting ink.

Let’s just say that at this point, I was fed up.  What else could go wrong? Using a toothpick, in went the glue, then the grass.  Out came the grass on the end of the toothpick.  It was a battle to get that stuff to the bottom of the vial.  Then more glue, then the mushroom.  Then a cotton-wrapped toothpick to try and wipe all the glue off the sides of the glass.  More grass came out.  I threw in some glitter stars for distraction and popped the cork on.  Just then I remembered that I’d lost my round-nose pliers, but I went ahead and created a roundish loop for the top of this project because I’ll bet that teenager is dying to put it on a chain and wear it out.  Oh yeah.