I have been struggling very hard recently. I am dealing with lots of grief at the moment. I have been finding ways to cope with the loss and not let it consume me.

I discovered that the starch nuts will continue to absorb moisture and continue to shrink if not sealed. I am trying using a thin layer of oil clay on them. Sadly, I ran out of it before I could finish the whole thing. But I hoping this will seal it off and allow me to finish the surface off with a mixture of dry wall mud, PVA, and shredded paper. Jess said she wants to help me sculpt out the beak when I do. 🙂

Yesterday, I also finished this rescued wooden plant table. It needed some TLC with water damage to its veneer, a broken top and a bad wobble. I spent a lot of time clamping and gluing to bring it back to life. I am super happy to give it another life as it will let our pothos plant grow and over hang in the window.

I also worked on my diorama case some, smoothing out the edges of the fabric squares I had applied to outside of the case.

Case Update

Then I helped Jess with moving/watering the indoor plants. This gave us back some room now that we have planted our container garden.

Try and do things that make you happy with the person(s) that make you happy.

Please take care of each other.

We have put in a good deal of hard work and a lot of pain to get to the place we are at.

I have been really struggling lately. I feel like my voice is lost and I am afraid.

I wanted to share some experiments using these starch packing peanuts as a sculpting material. I simply just took a spray bottle of soapy water and started pinching, stacking, wetting, stacking around some bamboo spines, making sure to let each layer dry completely before applying the next layer. If you don’t wait or use too much water it will melt into a horrible mess.

Also letting it try completely means less overall shrink/breakage and It becomes pretty stiff once dried. I again want to note that I did have some issues where I let it get thin towards the back and since it contracts a good bit while drying you might get a few holes like this. You can go back and fill/back them with more wet peanuts if needed.

Check out my other video on these starch nuts:

Starch mâché?

Thanks for letting me share this with you and please take care of each other.