Passing the Time With Pinterest

As I have said before, I am really bored waiting for this kid to be born.  Today I really needed some distraction...one of my friends who is getting married in the middle of April had her bachellorette party today in South Dakota and I have been feeling depressed that I am not able to be there.  Of course, since I knew when it was I knew I wouldn't be going but I thought I would have a baby to keep me occupied and would hardly be thinking about it.  Well...maybe I would be.  Who knows.  Right now I feel like a teenager on one of those "warning, don't get pregnant, girls!" shows.  The modern version would be "16 and Pregnant" on MTV but I know there have been after school specials and sex education videos that cover the same subject throughout the years.  There is always a part that features the new teen mom or pregnant teen having to give up fun things with her friends like prom or cheerleading and sitting home alone while all of her friends are out having fun.  Not wanting to give up fun was the main reason I waited until I was 28 to start thinking about having kids and I have handled it well so far I think.  (I guess you don't NEED to drink to have fun, although it really helps in most situations!)  I would have gone to the party had it been a month ago but not, of course, at this moment in time. 

So, instead of thinking about my sister and my cousin and our friends having a carefree road trip to S.D. as they headed to a night of silly antics and fun "going out" hair and clothes while I sat here and stared at the TV while fixating on how grotesque my stomach looks I decided I had to do something.  If there is a place where you can find something to do, it is on Pinterest.  I haven't been wanting to start a new sewing project because they are pretty time consuming and once I start something I like to work on it steadily until it is done so I don't get bored or frustrated and leave it unfinished for months.  Also, projects like quilts can be physically demanding because I like to cut my peices while I sit on the floor and even in good shape I get sore and uncomfortable after a certain amount of time and I am not even close to being in prime physical condition right now! 

I decided to make these cool shattered marbles that I have been intrigued by since I started looking at Pinterest. 

 http://www.nikkilynndesign.com/2011/01/how-to-make-fried-marble-necklaces.html/

Pretty, aren't they?  I was thinking that instead of making jewelry (it must take some special glue to keep those held together!) I would just make them and see what happened and maybe use them in a clear vase or something. 

These are easy to make.  You just put the marbles on a baking sheet and turn your oven into an inferno (various directions give different temperatures, usually around 450 or 500 degrees) and bake them for aroud 20 minutes.  As soon as you take them out, dump them directly into a bowl of ice water and watch the crackle happen. 

The challenge turned out to be finding marbles at all.  The first place I looked was in the floral department of Hobby Lobby for the vase filler marbles but I wanted the round ones and they only had round clear ones (many colors of the flat kind).  I was hoping for various colors like the picture above and like the ones I remember from when I was young.  I recall glass ones in green, blue and red and many colors of the "cat eye" style ones. 

Well, not surprisingly they are not a common item in the toy and game section of stores anymore.  At Hobby Lobby the lady there said they didn't have those in the game section because they were dangerous for little kids (choking hazard).  Hmmm...OK...I think there are plenty of small choking hazard sized items at Hobby Lobby.  It isn't a toy store, after all, but a hobby and craft store, but whatever.  She actually referred me to Wal-Mart.  I have grown up in the "Big Box Store" era and I admit there are alot of "Great Value" Walmart brand products in our house but sometimes I would just love to be able to walk into a Hardware Hank or Ben Franklin again.  It was truly impossible to find an employee to even ask about the merchandise at Hobby Lobby and at K-Mart when I finally tracked someone down to ask if they had marbles they looked at me like I was crazy.  At Walmart I never expected to find an employee to help me (I know better than that!) but they did have very small bags of real marbles (not vase fillers) in the toy department so, of course, it didn't let me down once again, but I had to go to Wal-mart...on a weekend...shudder.

Once I got home I preheated the oven and baked the marbles.  Of course, I spent alot more time hunting for marbles than I did actually doing the project but I don't care!  This was supposed to be a diversion and it worked! 

There they are in the ice water.  I forgot to take a picture of the "before" but oh well...who hasn't seen marbles?  These were all "cat eye" style marbles except for the big one, a.k.a. the shooter.  I wish you could buy whole bags of shooters! 

Here are the finished marbles.  It is pretty sweet how the crack on the inside but stay smooth on the outside.  Apparently, it is not uncommon for a few to break but none of mine did. 

Oooh pretty!

So...that was fun and I still haven't gone into labor!  DANG!  I am now on a mission to find more diverse marbles.  We had marbles when we were kids, although we didn't actually play the traditional way.  I don't even know the rules.  They were just fun in general I guess.  I think I was just drawn to the colors.  My mom made us all our own little bags for them out of fabric scraps. 

I guess I am not surprised that traditional marbles are hard to find.  I know people my parents' age used to play with them.  They used to turn up occasionally in the dirt flower beds around the farm, most definitely a remnant of my dad's childhood.  We also found one in the flower bed of this house where 7 kids who were from my parents' generation were raised.  But now most kids I know can't stay away from a screen for more than 5 minutes and have a near meltdown if their Nintendo DS battery drains.  I like to think I will raise a kid that can find amusement away from electronics and can get through a car trip longer than 30 minutes without watching a DVD or playing a video game but I am beginning to think it is probably a lost cause!   I'm sure something as basic as marbles doesn't interest many kids and I guess I can't be too judgemental about it because I don't know how to play it either.