super glue ceramic fixes

Fixing a plant pot with super glue is hardly dramatic, but I've been distracted with family stuff and need a nudge to get back in the blogging habit, so I'm plopping in this quick-and-easy fix . . . although I am not sure it's fair to call it a "fix", because cracked ceramic remains cracked looking, even with super glue.

A pot that I think is pretty tipped over and cracked, and I super-glued it back together.

Voila!

Thoughts:

• One of the advantages of it being a flower pot is that crinkly cracks look organic, and they don't detract too much from the aesthetic.  A re-glued serving dish would be decidedly less pleasing to look at.  
• Piecing together ceramic is a little bit like jigsaw puzzles, and therefore a fun activity in and of itself.  It's not like I think I should break other pots just for the entertainment of reassembling them, mind you.  But the reassembly is enjoyable.

While I was at it, I used the glue to reassemble the handle on this mug.

The handle isn't a handle, at least not in this configuration.

The mug arrived in the mail for me today, a surprise thank-you gift from my professional association for serving on a committee.  I happened to find that particular committee fairly annoying, and full of crackpots, so I see a deep symbolism in that this mug arrived cracked -- flown off the handle, so to speak. Inside the mug was a set of helpful instructions: don't give this to children when it's full of hot liquid; don't drink boiling liquid until it has cooled sufficiently; hand-wash the mug.  

A hand-wash-only mug with a cracked handle -- a gift that I didn't even ask for -- hmmmm . . . I think some day I need to write a blog post entitled, "Top Ten Gifts for the Environmentally Conscious Minimalist".   That would be a really fun list to compile!  (But this mug would not be on the list). 

Since I had the super glue out anyway, I did the jigsaw puzzle thing and reattached the handle.  Maybe I'll turn this into another planter; not sure yet.

The wooden lid for the mug fits a wide mouth canning jar.
A small redeeming feature!

Big and little frugal tools

As my campus was gearing up for the beginning of the semester, one of our department coordinators announced that a departing professor had abandoned shelves in the hallway: did anyone want them?

I said, yes please: my husband's books are overflowing the rag-tag collections of homemade shelves I'd assembled.

So she put a post-it note on the shelves with my name on it. Even better, she arranged to have a hand-cart sitting next to the shelves.  So I walked the shelves four blocks along our neighborhood streets, from the campus building to my house.  Hurray for hand-carts!

 

A couple of days later, I passed by a free pile of clothing that included a top that is exactly the kind of thing I like to wear.  Well, almost exactly: when I put it on, I realized the tag in the neck was super scratchy.  So I spent a pair of minutes with my trusty seam ripper, removing the threads that stitched the tag to the shirt,  . . . 

. . . and now it's exactly exactly the kind of shirt I like to wear!

Ahhh, tag off!

When I was overseas for nine months, I really missed the free piles that grace the streets of my neighborhood here back home.