Another Silly Little Project

 

Many, many, - many - years ago the Wife collected a whole mess of these gumball machine monkeys, which are now listed on sites like Etsy and Ebay as vintage.  - Hey! Vintage just like us!

Can you believe that up until the mid 70's women were banned from running the Boston marathon because "people" said they were too fragile?! I'll bet everyone of those "people" had dangly bits between thier legs and I hope they finish(ed) thier days ashamed of the misogynistic nonsense coming out of thier mouths! I know, I know. I've run off on a tangent again but when I wrote 'vintage' up above it flashed into my mind that not all vintage is good.

Why did the Wife collect these things? Who knows. I don't keep track of everything she's doing. She'll probably tell you something like "because they're cute". But in the end the why doesn't matter.

What matters is that she recently found an interesting little stick laying around and thought "That'll look cool with some monkeys perched on it!"

As is often the case with things like this around here, I'm the one that ended up using the belt-sander to flatten one side of the "interesting little stick" so it will sit flat, adding a little shelf made out of the same wood for some monkeys to sit on while others will cavort above on the contours of the stick, hitting the whole thing with a hint of transparent purple sparkly paint (which doesn't show in the photo but sparks it up in real life.), and sealing it with a clearcoat. But I don't mind. In fact we both prefer that she keeps away from any and all power tools!

You see, The Wife comes from a long line of remarkably clumsy people. So much so it's amazing that her lineage has managed to survive for generations of "beleive it or not" style stories. (The number of males in this lineage who have managed to shoot themselves is astonishing and teo of The Wife's siblings had more broken bones before they graduated from elementry school than three generations of my family have had, ever')

So we deal with enough injuries around here as it is without adding power tools to the mix. (I once witnessed her standing in front of the washing machine minding her own business with both feet planted firmly on the concrete floor when suddenly, for no discernable or logical reason that either one of us can figure out, she stumbled backwards, arms pin wheeling, feet kicking higher than any person of her build can tolerate, into some shelving, and crashed to the floor with a busted rib.) 

But, back to the stick that I'm working on in order to protect my spatially-challenged partner.

Before we got any further down the 'cute little stick' track, while working on a completely different project, I trimmed the busted end off a fallen oak branch

as I turned the rest of the branch into firewood

for my tiny little firepit-in-a-bin and the Wife fell in love with that discarded stub.

So - change of direction.

With a collection of bits-n-pieces from our various stashes, I went to work - under The Wife’s carefull supervision.

A healthy coat of clear-seal on the 'stub' to slow down the natural processes, a little paint and intricate brushwork to 'dress' the monkeys, some model scenery stuff to bring the oak-stub 'mountain' to life, some thread and a couple scraps of cloth for effect, and a bit of hot-glue to keep everyone in place, and this is the result.

First up are the Goodall brothers in thier classic hear, see, and speak no evil poses.

Then we have Beauregard, all gussied up in an elegant tux but screaming maniacally from the top of the mountain because he's the quintessential middle child desperate to be seen and heard.

And finally we have Madeline, known to all as Maddie. Kind of appropriate since you never know

what sort scandalous shenanigans Maddie

is going to get up to next!

Add a few trees

a few patches of ground-cover

and there you have it.

Well -

except for the bell-jar

to keep dust off the gang.

Not sure what it cost to get the monkeys out of the gumball machine, but at $30 that bell-jar probably cost about ten times the cost of all the other stuff that went into making this little diorama put together!