Maple's Laboratory: Gathering Supplies, Part One

So we have about a hundred thousand different things we could be posting about, but we can't do it all in one day. Pacing ourselves is necessary. :-/

Plus we wanted the Activity Two pics to sit at the top of the blog for awhile. They are wonderful entries - Vote for your favs on or before February 19th. (p.s. Activity Three Pics are due March 1st.)

Today we return to the topic of Maple's Laboratory, so this is Maple posting.

Bask in my glory.

We stopped in at Michael's craft store to pick up supplies for this project. We got a lot of things, so we'll split them into 4 different posts to do them justice. We kept the store receipt (or at least we think we did) so if you want to know how much an item cost, just ask us and we'll let you know (once we find the receipt, haha).

We purchased objects to decorate the lab furniture as well as accessories to go in the lab - hopefully that makes sense. If not, you'll figure it out as we go! Haha.

For this post, we'll show you the metal accoutrements we purchased to decorate/accent our lab and the tiny vials we found. We aren't going for a contemporary, sleek look - but rather an old-fashioned, Victorian look, with some steampunky bits thrown in.

Now we were thinking of just gluing gears on our masterpiece in various places for the aesthetic, but then we watched this video and figured we needed to up our game.






We certainly don't want to end up falling on our face, like Justin Bieber's holiday music video that attempted to harness the steampunk trend. While combining it with elves laying down some hip-hop and break-dance moves, tiny orphans defying child labor laws, and the steamy fog from Michael Jackson's Captain EO set or something. Oh yeah, and that Arthur Christmas animated movie is part of this as well.

Qua? I mean, they've actually managed to make Santa's Workshop look slightly disturbing.
Just look at Justin's vest. Yikes...

Most of what we bought is designed by Tim Holtz for scrapbookers/crafters. And we also have one thing from K&Company. There are a couple more things we are looking to get, but this was what was available in that store. These items are easily purchased online through Amazon and scrapbooking supply stores. But we wanted to see them in person to get an idea of scale. Nothing like your own two eyes to make sure you like the size of something. ;-)

First we have clock faces, empty plaques, and keyholes. We have already used the plaques (in a project that we'll show you soon). The clocks and keyholes still have to have their destiny mapped out in order to maximize their awesomeness. :-D

Clock faces range from 1 1/2" to 1 3/4" in diameter. Keyholes are generally 1 1/2" high and 1" wide. Rectangular plaques are 2" high  by 2 1/4" wide. The oval plaques are 2 3/4" high by  2 1/4" wide.

Then we have spinners (for the clocks), keys, and gears. We haven't used any of these yet - but again, we are plotting. Some of the keys are a bit large, but that probably won't stop us from using them somehow. They have flat-backs, fyi - so they can be glued down easily to a surface.

Spinners are sized for the clocks - so not very huge. The keys range from 1 5/8" to 3 1/2" and the gears range from 3/4" to 1".

And last but not least for today, the fantastic tiny glass vials from Tim Holtz. They are real glass, and they have real cork tops. They are amazing and we are trying to come up with ways to fill them with different substances that look legit. Flavia de Luce (one of our inspirations) has tons of glass jars full of different materials that were collected and purchased by her Great Uncle Tar de Luce. So we want a bunch of different things in our vials that she has in her lab. Then we'll have to figure out a way to make tiny, old-fashioned labels for our substances. :-D

The tallest vial is 3 inches high with cork, and the tiniest ones are 1 1/4" high with cork. 

We hope you have enjoyed this first look at some of the supplies we are gathering for our Laboratory Project.

Stay tuned for more posts soon!