What a find....!

A few weeks ago I had a commision for some layouts which were to be accompanied by a set of verse sticks. To make these little bits of scrumptiousness, I needed giant lolly sticks and a hand drill amongst other things. Ok, no probs on the lolly sticks - any shop selling crafty bits will have them; ebay have stacks... the early learning centre, the works, wilko's... they're everywhere. Everything else I had in my stash - except the drill... and well, the drill proved to be the hard part.

I thought 'No worries, Carlos will drill them for me with his super whizzy electric jobby...' But no, he could not. Whatever he tried, the wood split. He changed bits, changed speed, placed them on a padded surface, tried them on a block...damped them...drilled through them individually, and also stacked up.

Nothing worked.

I was frantic by now - I had a deadline, and was fast running out of sticks to practice on!

I rang my dd. Her hubby's grandpa had recently passed away. I knew grandma still had all his things stored away... might he have had a hand drill somewhere? No. Gave it up years ago in favour of electric. Ditto my dad.

Somehow we managed to bodge enough do the work, and the article went ahead. But I really enjoyed making them and wanted to do some more - they make such cute little presents.

Only I couldn't face all the stress and aggro... So imagine my glee when I found a great old hand drill in a box in a junk shop yesterday - going for the princely sum of ONE POUND!

Yay! Snapped it up - of course!

Well, you would, wouldn't you!