A toothpick.
Yep, the lowly, get-junk-out-of-your-teeth, wee slice-of-a-tree toothpick. It is small, yet mighty in its ability to do good things.
So, what do I do with it?
I use it to hold beads from going astray.
See how nice that bead fits on the end of the toothpick? It won't slide off too easily but easily enough when I need it to.
In creating "Gogh and Flourish," I used toothpicks in both hands to corral the beads as I set them into the glue. I also used them to keep the beads upright so the holes on the beads don't show when looking at the piece straight on (I wish these closeups of "Gogh and Flourish" were better...I'm still working on how to make that happen...please be patient with me :-) ).
Yep, each one of those beads was placed by hand using toothpicks.
I also use toothpicks to clean out glue. When I'm placing a bead or other small item onto a canvas, spool, or whatever, glue will often ooze out from underneath that item. I can use the toothpick to clean out the ooze without messing with the placement of the item. It's tedious work, but I get great results with less worry about mucking something up.
You can also corral wee items on on your work table with toothpicks.
Very helpful, as wee things tend to have minds of their own and want to wander off at inconvenient moments. (By the way...my table is shiny because I have a clear plastic tablecloth you can pick up at Walmart covering it. This way, I can see the beauty of the wood table [it is quite lovely :-)] and not worry about mucking it up with the painting I do.)
You can also make paint dots with toothpicks.
Aren't those nice dots?! Lots of fun uses for those.
So see? You don't have to spend a lot of money to get a really useful tool. You just need to look around your house for inspiration. If you look hard enough, you'll find it. If I can, so can you.
Until next time...happy days everyone!
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