A Marble-lous Idea

Ah the Groupon, it can take you to unexpected places- like a tiny artist's studio in Somerville where in just a few hours flames and fingers can transform borosilicate glass tubes into whatever you can imagine (given the limits of being an absolute novice in the arts of glasscraft).  In our case, I imagined a pendant, and boyfriend imagined a marble.
Not just any marble, but this shiny specimen!

Worthy of admiration.

     Boyfriend realized that such an item required a place to be displayed, and commissioned me to create one.  Off I went, on an intra-apartment freestyle hunt, looking for suitable free things that would be just the right size....  Something would have to be deep enough so that the marble could sit inside, small enough to fit on a work desk, and sturdy enough that it could be decorated and still cushion the marble.

Solution: The red cap from a generic pain reliever bottle. 

Supplies: scissors, blue felt, glue, and a red plastic bottle top.

I took the cap from a non-childproof pill bottle and decided to cover it with some blue felt left over from another project.  The edges of the bottle top are wavy, probably to help people grip the cap.  I thought that  the wavy soft edges of the display against the crisp line of the marble would be a nice contrast.  Because of the odd shape I had to glue the felt down in stages, and hold it with string while drying since it didn't want to sit flat against the cap.  

Sort of like watching paint dry....

I tried to get the folds evenly spaced around the edges, and in that I did not quite succeed.  There are some lumpy bits.  It is homemade from found parts, I hope he likes it anyway.

Ready for the big debut

This unique marble is now snug as a bug on its felted throne. 

Happy freestyling!