The Mystery Thing Revealed: It's Not A Hinge.

Welcome!  You're just in time for the big reveal.  For the past few days, my readers have been trying to identify the interesting metal centerpiece used in these upcycled necklaces:

Think you know?  Did anyone get it right?  Read on for the solution and some of the funniest guesses ever!




Before I give the trickier-than-expected answer, here's Mich's Honor Roll Of Most Creative (Totally Wrong) Guesses:

MissKoolAid: A spaghetti serving measurer for The Borrowers?
Saraccino: Brrrr...robotic brain parts!
Ashley: Midget brass knuckles.
Annie:  The inside of a harmonica.
Maple Girl:  You stole a train car from the Fairy Express!  You can tell this one was a dining car. The large holes are where the windows go for the tables, and the small ones are where they put the lights.
Shannon: A steampunk mouth grill.
Rae:  A kitchen pots and pans hanger for teensy tynsy chefs.
Day: The torture rack for wayward spiders who have broken the laws of the Ole' West.
Amy: A seven-toed nail separator, for the pedicures of Polly the polydactyl cat.
Lisbonlioness:  A mold for troll teeth. Normal troll teeth are diamonds (true, that), but seeing as a great many trolls have taken to organized crime, they often tend to, well, loose their chewers one way or another.  Mostly to pay gambling debts or in illegal cage fights.  Replacement troll teeth are made from silly putty.  I am not sure why - it's nigh impossible to get a straight answer from a troll dentist. They really are an elusive bunch, and I am sorry to report that my inquiries were to no avail, so I have to let you guys down on this detail.  Sorry.  Anyway, think I nailed it this time!!

Bweeeheehee!  As usual, you guys are smart as whips.  I think we can all agree, Steff Lisbonlioness went the extra imaginary mile this time - I love her!

Now on to the answer.  It turned out to be a real toughie!  Lots of people guessed a hinge or a lock part.  Sorry; nope and nope.  But hardware store was the right general area...

Ready?


Steady?


Here ya go.

It's an electrical grounding kit.  Of course.  Duh.  (Ahem - okay, I didn't know what it was either when I spotted it on the shelf.)

Here's how it looks out of the package.  Rosy-bronze patina!  Cool cutout shapes!  I loved it instantly.  Into the shopping cart it went.  And then it went from this...

To this.

It even slides back and forth just a bit on its support bar, making the dangles dance and play.  I'll have a tutorial for you in my next post.  For right now, it's on to the important bit...

Winners winners!  The super clever person to guess it first: Smrithy!  Yay, Smrithy, how'd you know this?  And this week's random.org winner: Charlie!  Congrats to you both - be sure to watch for my email.

Thanks for playing, peeps!  So much funnnn.