The Box! or Take My Advice!

Today has been great. This morning we got up real early, so we could drink coffee with Chet, before he and Willie took off for Terlingua.

After we adios-ed Chet and Willie I caught up on some paperwork and then I went outside and helped Tony with the morning chores.

This afternoon Tony and I met The Mineral Man, minus his Kris, at Cracker Barrel, for a fun and delicious lunch. While we were visiting with Jim I started telling him about my woodworking box, with inlaid precious stones, project. "Nancy, last Sunday, I watched Texas Country Reporter, too. And I saw that part about that man making those beautiful boxes."

"Cool. After we eat lunch today, we're going over to the craft store, so I can buy some more glue, glitter, cheap beads, colorful cut glass etc. for the box," I said. "I have this old turquoise necklace that broke, years ago and when we get home today, I plan to wrap up the turquoise stones, inside a kitchen towel and hammer them into little, tiny pieces, to use for the inlay." Jim sort of winced at me.

"Nancy, you can take my advice or leave it. But if I were you, before you go destroying your real turquoise beads, I think I'd do a test run using some of those inexpensive beads...."

And I am so glad that I took Jim's advice, because early this evening, in the kitchen, I created my own nightmare. Thank goodness I decided to use cheap, turquoise glitter, to fill in the grooves, instead of bits and pieces of my turquoise necklace, because when I started to sand off the surface, using my Dremel, to make it all real smooth, before applying a clear, glossy coat of MinWax, this is what I got instead. And none of the inlaid glitter glitters!

Talk about one fine mess. It is horrible and now I have to re-stain the box top. Tony and I are still laughing about it, because he told me that I definitely need to do a lot more research and practice on the box for hours. And the worse part is—our kitchen area and our dog's shiny coats are all sparkling with turquoise glitter, that I either accidentally spilled or tried to sand away.

So the moral of my box fiasco story is: "All that glitters is not gold or turquoise." And that's about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening!