Fix It

Recently, I purchased some black cat desk items from Amazon, a smartphone stand, and an eyeglass holder. I was crushed and upset when the items arrived in pieces. Whoever was in charge of packing and shipping, shipped the items without packing material to guard against breakage. Not very bright. The tails on both cats were broken off. And worse than that, the front legs on the smartphone stand were broken off completely and shipped without feet!

Both of these items came from third party distributors. The smartphone stand had a notation that the item was not returnable. I didn't notice that at the time of purchase. Caveat emptor. Amazon was great about issuing a refund, and since the item could not be returned, I didn't have to bother sending it back.

The tails on both items had been broken off cleanly and were easily fixed with a bit of Gorilla glue. But what to do about the broken smartphone stand.? I didn't want to just toss it in the trash. I didn't think the polyresin it was made of could be recycled.

I thought of painting the stumps and gluing a bit of yarn in front as if the kitty was playing with a skein of yarn. I really liked the stretching kitty pose. Ink used to do that pose a lot.

I decided I'd try to make legs with a bit of Sculpey clay. Sculpey is a polymer clay which needs to be baked in order for the clay to harden. When baking, the clay gives off toxic fumes. I had an old toaster oven which was dedicated to baking the polymer clay, but the oven died long ago. I never bothered to replace it as I didn't really do much with polymer clay.

While in Michael's picking up the Sculpey, I wandered around to see if there was another type of clay I could use. One that didn't give off toxic fumes, could be air dried and didn't need to be painted.

In the kiddie aisle, I found a package of Magic Model by Crayola. It came in a rainbow of colors, could be reused or air dried. It even came in black. Perfect! So I fashioned some legs and molded them directly to the stumps. They seem to be holding without having to use glue. With some Tombow markers, I colored the white features on the face to resemble my Ink. So a happy ending to a shipping disaster.

The legs are still drying so not sure how long it will take for them to harden completely. I've since propped up the body so air can circulate completely around the front legs. I'll also have to take care to make sure the stand doesn't get knocked off the table as it won't survive a fall.