Judy here. I don't know how to contact you, Christie_Hartner . I am very interested in your post of cracking bottles with oven heat. I have done this before, but I do not recall how. LOL I know I used green bottles, put them into a brown grocery bag, placed on cookie sheet & heated it in the oven. I do not know the temp. or how long. After they heated I used a hammer with the bottles still in the bag and broke them. It was really great for the pieces were all perfect and did not cut when handled. I glued green glass on a cardboard and glued jewelry for ornaments then with brown bottle made the tree container. Also put lights in it Pre punched holes. It was a Christmas Tree probably 24" by 16". If you found any info please share. Thanks jjarnett@att.net.

I found this elsewhere: "Q: I want to make all my ugly plastic planting pots look like concrete pots. How can I do this? A: There's an easy way and a not-so-easy way to accomplish this look. Let's go with the easy way. There are several products on the market that can be sprayed on to create that concrete look. One I like in particular is a spray paint from Krylon. Simply clean and dry the pot, then spray the surface. You will have a concrete look in no time. If you want to be a little crafty and add some dimension, spread on a plaster compound and cover it with sand. Let that dry, and then paint the entire pot." I couldn't find any paint by Krylon that said "concrete look", maybe you will have better luck. If you wanted a smooth concrete look maybe you could use a flat grey primer then lightly sponge with just a shade darker (or lighter)?

I absolutely LOVE the sunflowers on the black horse. I couldn't find wallpaper and have been looking for other sources of sunflowers I could use. I thought of napkins, wrapping paper or fabric, but just couldn't find any that were JUST right...until yesterday. I bought a nice sunflower fabric at WalMart and will starch it before cutting out the flowers so they don't fray before I get them attached and sealed to my horse. Once I saw this sunflower horse, I just couldn't imagine any other flower on the horse than sunflowers! I hope to get at this project soon and I'll post pics of my copy of your beautiful project justlinda when I'm done! Thanks for the inspiration!

Ditto what SILVA said. Viewed on closeup on Flickr, this is mind-boggling. Those teeny weeny pieces and the details are awesome. This kind of work w/drive me crazy. I'd never have the patience to work on something so detailed. I read back over this thread, and I don't see anything about an auction - is this gonna wind up in an auction for charity??? If so, how w/you be able to part w/something so beautiful, and something that took so much of your time and thought, and wouldn't you want to display this in your home?