Build your own Globerator

Materials/Tools needed to make One Liberator provided you don't lose anything, break anything, or have any defective bits:

• Needlenose Pliers
• Wire cutters
• 3" long Gold Head Pins (flat end pins) (4 needed)
• 3" long Gold Eye Pins (loop end pins) (4 needed)
• 2" long Gold Eye Pins (can use 3" eye pins here) (3 needed)
• Gold craft or beading wire (optional, but useful)
• (I used clear/crystal beads, except for the gold seed beads.)
• 18 mm Global faceted bead (A green one could be used here.) (1 needed)
• 10 mm Global faceted beads (3 needed)
• 8 mm Global faceted beads (6 needed)
• 6 mm Global faceted beads (9 needed)
• 18 mm Sunburst bead (also called Paddlewheel or Snowflake- it's shaped like a 6-rayed asterisk with the hole in the center) (1 needed)
• 6 X 9 mm Barrel beads (7 needed)
• 19 X 6 mm Spaghetti bead (shaped like a fat grain of rice) (3 needed)
• 6 mm Rondelle beads (shaped like an inverted pie plate on another pie plate) (4 needed)
• Gold seed beads (12 needed)
• 3 " across clear plastic globe (the kind that comes apart & snaps back together). This is optional.

Assembly:

Thread the eyes of all three of the 2" eye pins onto the doubled pins. Use the needlenose pliers to tighten the eyes as much as possible.

Thread beads onto the two doubled pins in this order : two 10mm Global, the 18 mm Sunburst, one 10 mm Global bead, one 6 X 9 mm Barrel bead, one 6 mm Rondelle bead onto the doubled pins.

One of the doubled wires may be slightly longer. If so, use the needlenose pliers to bend the shorter wire down to lock the threaded beads in place (the bent part will probably about a quarter inch). Don't try to get it perfectly tight or the rondelle bead will break. (If both wires are the same length, bend either one down.)

Thread three gold seed beads onto the remaining straight pin. (If the wire is too short, thread two beads.) Pull the pin up with the pliers so the beads are as tight as you can get them then bend the pin in half so the bent tip just meets the first bead. Flatten the bend, trying not to break the gold beads. You can trim the first bend-down wire now if it extends too far beyond the rondelle.

Return to the 3 eye pins. Thread three 6 mm Global beads on one eye pin, and bend the excess wire into an eye shape as close to the beads as possible. Repeat with other two eye pins, trying to space them equidistantly around the Liberator. Tighten them as much as you can, while still leaving the loop open. Trim the excess wire from the loops.

Thread an 8 mm global bead onto both 3" eye pin and 3" head pin (as in the first step). Thread these pins partway through one of the newly formed loops in the same direction as the main pins (you want the first bead on these pins on the same side of the loop as the 18 mm global bead). Tighten the loop as close around the pins as possible, then pull the pins all the way on. Thread beads in this order on the pins: another 8 mm global, a 6 X 9 barrel, a 19 X 6 spaghetti bead, another 6 X 9 barrel, and a 6 mm rondelle. Finish with three gold seed beads in the same way as before (you will probably wind up with a much longer end wire than the first one, but it looks better that way, so don't trim it). Repeat with other two eye pins.

Adjust and straighten. If your Liberator is floppy where the three eye pins meet the main pins (sometimes it is, no matter how you tried to tighten the eye loops) and you have gold craft wire, wrap it around the meeting place until they are firm, then cut the excess wire.

Now you decide how to display your ship. Suspended from monofilament in a window? Sitting on a shelf, or atop your computer? Or, if you've got the globe, you can hang it on just about anything (Christmas trees?).

For that: Open the clear plastic globe and put in your Liberator. You can use gold ribbon or a Christmas ornament hook to hang it.

Marian Mendez

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