How to make a Geode topped trinket box- from Etsy

What you’ll need:

• White pipe cleaners
• String
• Scissors
• Borax
• Heat-safe glass jar or container
• Measuring spoons
• Gel food coloring (liquid would work, too)
• Pencil
• Paint brush
• Testors Metallic Gold enamel paint
• Paint thinner
• E6000 glue
• Decorative box

Step 1: Create the base for the crystal. Using a few pipe cleaners, form a coil, weaving the ends in and through the coil’s layers as you go. This will help secure the disc-like shape.

Step 2: Cut a 12-inch long piece of string and thread it through one of the outer rings of the coil. Set the whole thing aside.

Step 3: Measure out 9 tablespoons of Borax into a heat-safe glass container or jar.

Step 4: Boil 3 cups of water in a small pot and mix in food coloring. (Start with about ½ teaspoon of gel food coloring, and add more if you know you want a deep tone.) Stir to encourage the gel to mix in completely, then carefully pour the still-boiling water over the Borax powder and mix until dissolved. (You can add more coloring to the water once the Borax is dissolved if you’d like a deeper hue.)

Step 5: Lower the pipe-cleaner coil into the Borax solution, and tie the other end of the string around a pencil or pen, so that the coil won’t touch the bottom of the jar when you rest the pencil on the jar’s rim. Let the coil sit undisturbed for about 5 hours, covered with a dish towel, then remove it from the solution and pat dry with a paper towel. Cut off the string.

Step 6: Paint the crystal’s edges with metallic enamel paint. Tip: Load only a small amount of paint onto your brush at a time — it will spread over the crystal’s surface rather quickly. When you’ve finished, clean the brush with paint thinner and rest the crystal on a spool or a bottle top, out of direct sunlight (which can cause the color to fade). Let dry, then glue the crystal to the box lid with E6000 glue.

Festive Physics from The Daily Mail

He’s making a list, and checking it twice, to find out who has been naughty and nice.

But Santa might also want to jot down a few equations and sums, as he’ll need to grapple with the laws of physics come Christmas Eve.

Of course, it’s unlikely Santa has to deal with the rules of science in quite the same way as regular people, but he might want to take a glance or two at the task awaiting him on his trip this year.

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Santa will have to overcome the laws of science when he makes his journey around the world from the North Pole on Christmas Eve (illustration of Santa and his reindeer shown). Calculations reveal the incredible speeds he will need to attain - 3,000 times the speed of sound

For starters, assuming that Santa doesn’t handle certain faiths, he’ll have about 378 million children to deliver to in a fairly short time frame, according to one scientist.

Thankfully, due to the rotation of Earth he’ll have a good 31 hours to deliver presents - rather than just 24 - assuming he’s flying East to West to match Earth’s rotation.

With a further assumption of their being 3.5 children in each household, based on the average census rate, that leaves him with 91.8 million homes to visit.

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That means he has 822.6 visits per second to cope with, requiring a stay of about one thousandth of a second to deliver presents to each home.

HOW MUCH STORAGE SPACE WOULD SANTA'S LIST NEED?

American data storage company Seagate calculated the disk space required to back up Santa’s list.

Based on the world population data for under-14s, taken from the U.S. Global Census, Seagate worked out Santa would receive an estimated 1,843,868,987 letters this year.

If each Christmas letter takes up an estimated 500KB when uploaded as a scanned copy, it would take up 859GB of data each year.

Letters from India's children would take up the most room with 338MB. China comes in second taking up 225MB and Nigeria sits in third place taking up 72MB.

The UK comes in at number 32 on the list, taking up 10MB of data. 

All in all, Santa’s sleigh will need to move about 650 miles (1,050km) per second, which is 3,000 times the speed of sound or 0.35 per cent the speed of light.

At such a speed it's possible Santa may start to feel the effects of relatiivty, particularly time dilation, causing him to age very slightly slower than the rest of the people on Earth - perhaps partially explaining his perpetual ability to deliver presents at Christmas.

The sleigh will also have a sizable number of presents on board, further complicating matters.

Is each child were to receive a present no more than 2lbs (0.9kg) in weight, the sleigh would still weigh more than 320,000 tons - just shy of the weight of the Empire State Building, 370,000 tons.

An average reindeer on Earth can pull only 300 pounds (135kg), so in this scenario 214,200 reindeer would be needed.

Of course, considering these are flying reindeer, they may well be able to handle heavier loads.

But with the weight and speed of the sleigh, it appears that the front two reindeer - Dasher and Dancer, until Rudolph’s inclusion - will be subjected to 13.4 quintillion joules of energy per second.

This will cause them to burst into flames almost immediately after taking flight. The entire reindeer team, assuming only eight are used, would be vapourised in 4.26 thousandths of a second.

With the weight and speed of the sleigh, it appears that the front two reindeer - Dasher and Dancer, will be subjected to 13.4 quintillion joules of energy per second. This would generate temperatures far in excess of those experienced by Nasa's Orion on its return to Earth Friday 5 December (illustration shown)

However, in rebuttals to Miss Harden’s research, other scientists pointed out a few points that might make his job a bit easier.

Jim Mantle from Waterloo Maple Software suggested that Santa wouldn’t necessarily have to visit all 91.8 million homes in one night.

‘Santa would have to Fedex a number of packages ahead of time, since he would not be able to fly into Air Force Bases, or into tower-controlled areas near airports,’ he explained, so those homes could be subtracted.

And another unnamed scienist said that such flying reindeer might have more power than we think owing to a ‘dominant gene sequence within the reindeer DNA strand.’

Meanwhile, last year a team of scientists from The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair said Santa would 150 billion calories in milk and mince pies during his journey, if he accepted all the snacks on offer at various homes.

And the total expenditure on all of the presented needed would be around £280 billlion ($440 billion) - which is £30 billion ($47 billion) more than his home country of Finland.

Spare a thought for the elves as well; 3,000 of them need to work eight hours a day around the clock, for the whole year, in order to get enough presents for every good child.

So however Santa Claus plans to get all his presents delivered this year, we hope he’s taken a look at the science accordingly.

Thankfully, due to the rotation of Earth he’ll have a good 31 hours to deliver presents - rather than just 24 - assuming he’s flying East to West to match Earth’s rotation. Shown is an illustration from Nats blog, which shows the possible path taken by Santa around Europe

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2871501/The-science-SANTA-Father-Christmas-deal-vapourising-reindeer-sleigh-heavy-Empire-State-Building-comes-town.html#ixzz3LhqzN8Fq
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Writing important documents

Those of you who know me will know that I am a reluctant academic. I don't always write well (plenty of evidence here of that!), I'm lazy and of my friendship group I'm probably the owner of the lowest IQ and posses the least academic qualities.

There are many things I am very good at, but I wouldn't describe academia proper as one of them.

With this in mind I was very surprised to be invited to a meeting at the university this week. It transpired that I'd been invited to help advice the writing of a new course- Which is very exciting!
There were other, far more qualified people on had to deal with all the important bits, but I was invited specifically to design a major project/dissertation relating to my latest work interest: STEM.

I was really honoured to even be asked to advise, I am by no means an expert on anything!
I don't care if they never use anything I wrote I was just delighted to be there! I should receive the draft of my assignment brief next month and will have been asked to attend the review meeting for the university board where I will be expected to explain the brief and answer questions- Hopefully then the course will be accredited and signed off!

One of my colleagues had ben working on the project- alongside collages from other places- for a few months, but when the subject of a STEM dissertation came up she recommended me (Which was a bit of an ego boost!).

I hope I'll get to have a bit more involvement with the course as it progresses, but to be honest, this has topped my expectations of the year so far already!

2014-2015 will be an exciting year- STEM coordinator, STEM club proper, STEM scholars programme, My Science fair (Which has taken my life over) and now the involvement with the university.
... and the Engineering course where we get to make watches in january!

I know I whinge about my job- but I really do enjoy it. I cannot think of any other profession where I would be allowed so much creative scope or so many opportunities.
:D

And only having 8 working days until I have a winter holiday is a massive bonus too!

Ice Skating

On Wednesday Suzi, May, Jenni, Abida, Karl and I went Ice skating on the temporary outside rink at The Swan hotel.

It was really good fun!

May's a pretty good skater- and I'm ok- everyone else was new to ice skating so there was lots of falling over- at one point Jenni and Suzi were using the stands for children to help them skate not holding onto the sides.

The view over the river was pretty ace too! And they played Frozen songs!

I'm ready for christmas now! 

Traff's Skydive photos!

Eeekk I'd love to do this but I'm just not brave enough! So, I shall live through my excellent and brave boyfriend!
He looks like he's having a nice time!

Traff's 30th Birthday

Traff got up with me on Friday morning to open his presents in bed!
All good landmark birthdays should start at 6am!

After work we headed to Garry and Sharon's for the evening- They treated us to a massive chinese meal and excellent company.

We stayed at their's on Friday night so that we only had a short drive for the Skydiving on Saturday morning.
We had to get up at 6 (on a weekend!) to be there for 7.30 am to get all registered and trained up. we were lucky with the weather- it was sunny and bright (Thankfully not raining as that would have been a no-go) but freezing cold- Saturday was the coldest night of the years so far- the car was registering -1 degrees Celsius on the drive to the airfield.

We had to wait for the plane to defrost, so we waited about from about 8am after the training until 11am when they were able to take off!
eek.
Traff really enjoyed his Skydive.
he said he could see as far as the Wash at Kings lynn because it was such a clear day.

After the skydive we drove to Peterborough- with all the heaters on in the car to try and thaw our hands and feet out as much as possible from standing about in a field for like 4 hours.

We popped in to see Tony and Jo whilst Andy finished work, and they made lost of lovely warm cups of tea!
After that we headed into town to have nandos for tea!
:D
As it was Traff's 30th, fe decided he was too old to go clubbing so we got some beers in the Spa and headed back to Andy's for some chilling out and choons!
(In reality, it was just waaaayyyy too cold to we wandering around peterborough-it did look and feel very festive though!)

On Sunday morning we went for breakfast in spoons- This months Breakfast question is "What was the best part you ever played in the School Nativity?" It transpires all my friends except Tristrum (And myself) have had major parts in a primary school play- obviously Triat and I were just too naughty! Andy got to be a King, Traff was a Shepherd, Jay was a king and the in keeper on separate years, Tat

s was a mad russian woman (They do things differently in Luton...) Ray was a Camel and Kirstie was a Red hen.
Entertainment provided!

On the way back to the car They boys allowed me to go into the Sue Ryder "vintage" charity shop- I got myself a phallic and festive new jumper and was tempted to buy some curtains.

Slime

This has to be the easiest crafty activity- it takes minutes to make and provides hours of farty sounding enjoyment
:)

All you need is PVA glue and a saturated solution of borax- you add the borax a few drops at a time to the PVA glue until it's as slimy as you'd like!

I presented Traff with this, and he was not suitably impressed!

STEM day with the Smallpiece trust

Today was a STEM activity day from the Smallpiece trust- we made cars which run on a capacitor- so there was some circuit building and occasional zapping.

Th cars where made from corrugated plastic, with dowel axels and plastic wheels- the chassis were all paper to keep the weight down- flags were optional!

Villiers park & Cambridge

On Wednesday Lyns, Abby, Jenni and I went to villiers park (in the work mini bus- so it was a real trip!).
We were supposed to have 2 training sessions one on STEM in the morning and one on what the Villiers park educational trust can offer us in the afternoon.

Our morning session was cancelled, so instead we went into cambridge and did some networking for the morning.
We go to have a look round Kings college- that was pretty cool- Jenni loves touristy stuff like that, as she's from Ireland so it's all new!
I like her enthusiasm!

After the colleges we walked through the arcade and saw a shop called "tiger" it's actually a very cool german shop which sells household items- soft furnishings, crockery, kitchenwares- and kids toys, stationary and some interesting novelty items.
I now know how to say "fake dog poo" in german.

We followed this up with a trip to the Fitzwilliam gallery- they had a really cool exhibition on "silent partners" which used mannequins.
I think I will try and g back to see the rest of the installations- It wasn't Lyns or Abby's cuppa and I felt a bit of a freak staring intently at a load of weird mannequins whilst my colleagues started at me!

We headed back to Villiers Park for Lunch.
After which there was a very informative lecture, which I had to record on a pad of post-it notes a sI left my notebook on the minibus.
We got free mugs though!
Awesome!

Bargoed Xmas market

On Saturday Jay, Hayley and I went to the xmas market in Bargoed.
We met up with Hayley at Morrisons- we managed to get there early so we had tome for coffee and cake- and then we were served by Baker! So we got to catch up with him too. I haven't seen him for so long that he's grown a goatee and moustache!

The market was really cool- there was punch and judy (We got to see the bit with the crocodile where it eats the sausages! the best bit!) and reindeer and owls- which you could hold and have your photo taken- and there was luck dip!
Awesome!
We did a spot of charity shop shopping too! I got a brand new going out top (Originally cult clothes!) and some fabric for the sewing workshop on the 14th December. Winner!

Hayley and I were also offered some bargain priced botox.
Evidently the festive cheer has taken it out of me face some what. All the stress of present buying!

All in all it was an excellent morning out.
:)

This is Hayley with the reindeer- there a baby one behind her too but it was too busy to get pictures with both. apparently reindeer aren't native to the welsh valleys. It's cold enough. they should be. I suggested Jay get some because they'd enjoy living in his cold hilly garden. he disagrees.

We went for tea in a cafe on the high street which may or may not have once been a fire place shop- Hayley bought the biggest cupcake ever- it was about the size of her head- with a meringue snowman in the top but refused to eat it's face.

The owl people also had this sad looking vulture- Hayley made it a christmas had in photoshop so that it wasn't so miserable.

I actually regret not holding it! It looks like it needs a hug!

Me, fabric shopping in dippy hippy.

Hayley bought Jay and I a lucky dip.. maybe I can see why I was offered botox! Look at the state of my forehead!

The luck dip was good though- I got colouring pencils, crisps and a fancy rubber!

Xmas tree!

No flamingoes this year- only traditional multi coloured lights and all the random decorations- usually we go for some kind of colour scheme- but now we have so many awesome and random decorations it seems a shame not to let them all have a bit of an airing!

looks good, no?

Traff has also decorated the potted plants by the window and put tinsel on every possible surface. We even have presents to go under the tree! Everyone is super organised this year. Although, this does give me 25 days to shake and squash them to figure out what they all are!