Hourglass

For the hourglass in Wizard of Oz we were looking for something interesting, a little creepy, but most importantly plastic.

Apparently the last time they did the show they had a beautiful glass hourglass that shattered all over some poor little girl in the front row during one of the performances. There were no injuries, but it was certainly not something we wanted a chance to repeat.

I found these two purple plastic bottles in the floral section at Michaels. They were simple little spray bottles, they came in multiple shapes and colors and were only $1 each.

I filled the bottles with colored sand. I started with red sand and it was far too dark, it was almost invisible inside the dark plastic bottles, I switched to white and it worked much better.

I created a cap inside the mouth of one of the bottles using epoxy putty and slowly adjusted it until I got the right speed and amount of sand flowing through it. Once the inside piece was adjusted I attached the two bottles together using more epoxy putty making sure to get a good seal (the last thing I want is sand leaking out all over the place).

For the stand, I started with two basic plywood circles and three pieces of dowel. I had been hoping to find some bats or gargoyle-ish figurines to use on the corners, but was coming up empty after visiting multiple Halloween and toy stores.

For plan B, I bought a few packages of sculpy bakable clay

and made a set of snaky twisty pieces. I collaged them onto the corners.

I painted the whole thing a tarnished antique gold.

The piece turned out looking pretty good, and more importantly, sturdy.