This is the third time I've featured this object, though since I've kept very poor notes, it could be on as much as its fifth or sixth incarnation. Anyway. As part of my end-of-year/new-year's^[1] effort to tidy up my studio and various projects that have been hanging around, I finally restrung this broken mouse, which has been hiding out in my todo drawer for—I'm guessing—over a year.

Dead mouse with rectangular floral focal—overall length, 9-1/8th inches; focal, roughly 3/4"; orange aventurine, glass, rhyolite chips, carnelian, basemetal/black iron.

I decided I really didn't like the cutesy fruit dangle I used last time, and ended up sticking in rhyolite chips, as they were lying around. The left dangle is mostly unchanged from the first time I featured this mouse with the exception that I added a 4mm unakite round between the vintage orange & black faceted square and the lime green barrel. Also stuck the focal on a black iron wire this time. The small tan bead just below the coral bicone (above the cube, to the right) is actually cased in silver leaf, some of which turned to tiny metallic dots, the rest melted in for the colour. The olive and orange dot bead that replaced the coral hollow actually matches the colour scheme of the focal better, in my opinion.

This bead is one of two I tested by putting in coarse tumbling grit with my pin polisher. Dipping a mandrel in fine grit and then cleaning the bead by hand works great to break up bead release within a bead (the bane of hollow beadmakers’ cleaning experience) but I wondered if the coarse stuff, whorled around with the pins, would etch the surface. Well, after two sessions of 40 minutes each, I was able to detect some very fine pitting with a 10x loupe, so the answer is ‘no’.

One of the reasons I was willing to risk this was that I had a brand new fresh set of 0.3mm pins, so I set my old, magnetized ones aside, and started in the new. I guess if I'm not willing to use etch-all, I'm just gonna have to invest in a tumble polisher. Meanwhile, the bead is ever so slightly aged, making it a perfect match for the rest of the mouse (note especially how rounded the edges of the facets of the auburn coloured sarovski crystal are.)

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.