Coming together!

I have some prednisone to help combat the bad asthma I've got. I should be done with it in six days, and back to what passes for normal before then.

The inside of the mask has a few more coats to go before it's prosthetic-ready. Naked paper maché is a thirsty material.

And as for the heart...

[Shown here: heart base with the springs inserted]

The final assembly is ludicrously easy, compared to the rest of it.

I got rid of the cardboard, because it got in the way of the recharging.

Step one: Put the springs back on the spring pylons.

[Shown here: The transparent 'window' part of the heart sitting on the springs]

Step two: Carefully balance the divots of the window into the springs.

As you can see here, the window activates the on/off switch. In for off, out for on. [Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the other way around in the original, but who cares?]

Then the outer edge just pops on and it's all just a matter of screwing it up in the good way.

And, of course:

[Shown here: The heart recharging off of any old USB port. And some of my desk debris]

You might not be able to see it, but in order to recharge in situ [I'm getting a separate recharging dongle later on] it's necessary to twist the trinket circuitry around a little just to get the microUSB cable in.

Recharging this darling in the middle of painting and varnishing was a pain in the butt because the cardboard masking reduced mobility.

I'm currently running a timer to be certain of the charging time. But since the batteries are good for thirteen hours and change - my best guess is a six-hour charging time. We'll see.

I'm still waiting on news about the dress.

BUT - I have a box with which to protect my hat when it's in my luggage. Yay. If you can't find one anywhere else - try your local post office for hat-sized boxes. And I suspect I'll be doing things to wire coathangers plus nuts and bolts to arrange for a way to hang the heart on my good self.

That's later.

Today, I am taking a break from mall crawling.