Jewelry out of seashells easy to do
Martha Stewart
Question: How can I make jewelry out of seashells? — Tracy Stone, Chestertown, Maryland
Answer: Wearing beach fifinds as jewelry gives you custom accessories that will keep reminding you of the pleasures of summer. To make a pendant, choose a good-size shell, like the mussel shown; drill a hole in it with a craft drill. Then, with pliers, attach a jump ring (available at crafts stores), and thread it with a strand of bead cord. If you have a bunch of tiny shells, drill a hole in each and string multiples onto one cord. We like pastel bead cord for a subtle look, and brighter colors for contrast.
How-to: Drilling a shell
Supplies: Kitchen sponge, shallow plastic container, shell, craft drill, diamond-coated drill bit, 1 millimeter
1. Place sponge in container. Fill with enough water to just cover sponge. (The water will keep the drill from overheating and the shell from cracking.)
2. Set shell on sponge, topside down, and hold securely with your fifingers. Keeping edges barely submerged, slowly drill through shell.
Optional: Micro Max cordless rotary-tool kit, by Dremel, 8 volt, $89, www.homedepot. com. Diamond-coated twist drill bit (#56), by Eurotool, $6, www.metalliferous.com. from near Good Samaritan Medical Center in the north end to a station serving The Norton Museum of Art and Palm Beach Atlantic University in the south.
Currently, 12 stations are completed with 107 bikes on the road. Three new stations should be fifinished within a few weeks, Moore said. Customers can return bikes to any station, regardless of where they were rented.
Operational since May, SkyBike is averaging 40 rides a day, most of them on Saturdays and Sundays, according to Orellana.
My next rental attempt went smoothly, at fifirst. I entered the bike number, and the bike rack’s magnet released my ride, texting me the lock code at the same time.
The bungee cords on the front rack easily held my suitcase-sized purse.
SkyBikes have hand brakes and seven gears, but when I tried to cruise down Flagler Drive, my bike was stuck in a gear so low that my feet flflailed wildly like a hamster on a wheel while I had barely enough momentum to stay upright.
By now, rivulets of sweat were carving fifissures in my sunscreen armour, so I gave up and tried to return the bike. Even though I pushed it fifirmly into the lock, the system didn’t believe me. I was trapped in an endless cycle of “Return bike. Click. There’s a problem with your return. Click. Return bike. Click. There’s a problem with your return ...”
“There are a few glitches we’re still working out,” said Orellana, who heads a bike repair crew from a warehouse near downtown, “but we should be done with them later this week.”
I hope so because I love the rental bike concept, which I’ve used in European and other U.S. cities. I selfishly want these cool blue bikes to become a huge success so our seasonal squads of tourists will opt to bike rather than clog downtown streets with cars every winter.
I also can envision residents from other parts of the county coming to West Palm Beach for a day of cruising to the beach, along the Palm Beach bike path, to brunch and CityPlace happy hours.
A bike sharing program is a signal to eco-conscious tourists and residents that West Palm Beach is serious about creating a livable downtown, says Raphael Clemente, the executive director of the Downtown Development Authority who usually bikes to work from his Grandview Heights home.
“Today, I went by skateboard,” he said.
A bike sharing program “tells people that West Palm Beach embraces environmentalism, that it’s on the cutting edge of creating places for people, not just for cars,” said Clemente, who has been promoting the
Q: How can I identify poisonous plants at a glance? — Zach Magoto, Lexington, Kentucky
A: There’s no hard- andfast rule for recognizing irritating plants. “The itch is caused by urushiol, an oil from the plant,” says Joan McVoy, a registered nurse and educator at the Nebraska Regional Poison Center, in Omaha. Wash exposed skin immediately with soap and cool water, then soothe with colloidal-oatmeal products.
Poison ivy: There are regional variations in size and shape, but this plant will usually have leaflflets growing in clusters of three. It can be a low plant, a tall shrub or a vine.
Poison oak: This plant produces leaflflets that look like an oak tree’s; usually three (but as many as seven) grow on one stem.
Poison sumac: Also known as poison dogwood, poison sumac can have 7 to 13 leaflflets on a stem and grows from 6 to 20 feet high.