Agate slices

I have several slices of agate that will become table tops at some point. To this end, I've bought several napkin rings over the years with a view to using them as table bases.

Then this morning I got my May 2012 newsletter from the Mini Time Museum of Miniatures and that lead me to check out the videos on their website. One of the videos is of Madelyn Cook discussing her incredible work "Reflections" which is one of my favourite displays at the museum.

On the video, she mentioned that the base of one table is (are you ready for this?) a pastry blender.

Well, I just happened to have one in my kitchen...so the experiment began!

My first concern was how I was going to cut this but I dug out my trusty tin snips and found they did the trick.

I cut off the working part about 1/2" from each end.

I was concerned about cutting this in half equally.

So I took a piece of cardstock and traced around the curved section.

Cut that out and folded it in half.

Held that up against the curved piece and used a piece of masking tape to mark the centre on each of the pieces.

Then I used my tin snips to cut along the edges of the masking tape and ended up with two pieces.

I've just taped the pieces together for now because I'm not going to actually make a table until I have a place for it.

If I were ready to complete a table I would super glue the agate to the base like this.

I actually prefer the base this way. (The weight of the agate as spread the base out a bit but you get the idea.)

The agate slice lower right in the picture at the beginning of this post is about 4" x 4" and I've thought about making a dining room table with it.

The base as is only makes a table about 2" high so it's not high enough for a dining room table but I think I could sandwich the bottom flat pieces between a pieces of wood with a 1/2" piece on the bottom to give it the height needed for a dining table.

Think the bottom of the base would have to be wider. Or the metal part could be reversed and each side put into a wooden base.

Lots of possibilities...