four corners design: The persistence of metal madness

8.27.2011

The persistence of metal madness

As many of you know, I have a thing about metal...
and rust...
and intriguing shapes...
put the three of them together
and its my idea of heaven!

Cleaning up piles of stuff in the basement, I unearthed old individual metal upholstery springs...I remember that I picked them up thinking they would be the basis for a cool project...or they could just sit on a bookshelf or tabletop and look cool all on their own...but decided instead to make them into vases...

I gathered up supplies and tools...I had a great green painted board that I picked up at the ReStore for 30 cents...sanded off all of the rough edges before cutting it up as the base for each vase.

I had five individual springs...decided to make two single vases and one trio combination. After the bases were cut, I waxed each with Johnson's Paste Wax - its one of my favorite finishes, especially for wood - gives a nice smooth sheen.

Then I proceeded to attach each spring to its wood base...

I used poultry staples - galvanized metal and sturdy - perfect for this project.

The staples flare out at the ends...I use my lineman's pliers to compress the ends which makes it easier to hammer in straight. As you can see from the photo at left, I just hammered a staple into the wood, securing the bottom rung of the spring to the base.

I had a large stash of test tubes (I don't even know where some of this stuff comes from sometimes)...ideal for holding a single stem...I put three test tubes in each spring...they display the flowers at such jaunty angles...