More MacGyver than Michaels
In third grade, there was a project requiring a report and diorama or drawing. I chose the Eiffel Tower for no other reasoning than my older sister told me it was the coolest. I decided to make a diorama of the eiffel tower.
For the base, I cut up an old cardboard box from the garage. Unfortunately, I was too scared to use a box cutter by myself and used scissors. This resulted in a square base but the edges weren’t the cleanest but no one is going to be looking that closely at the base when they are looking at the tower.
Next, I went hunting for materials I could use for the structure. From the pantry, I pulled a box of spaghetti noodles to use for the metal frame of the tower. I knew you could snap the dry noodles from cooking shows but sometimes they would just bend when I tried it. I poked 4 holes in the cardboard base using a number 2 pencil. It took about 2 boxes of noodles before landing on the right amount of noodles that would not break from the 4 posts to a point on top.
With having a better understanding about the limitations of using dry spaghetti noodles. And wanting to avoid asking my mom to buy another box of spaghetti noodles, I decided to switch materials for the horizontal rods of the tower. I switched my medium to thread for this. It went more quickly than the spaghetti phase of the build but not without me having to hold my breath every time I tied the thread to the noodles fearing I would snap a structural pillar. There would come to be compromises with the thread, which was slack in comparison to the noodles.
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What was left was the tip of the tower. It was being held together with some prayers and scotch tape which wasn’t the finish I was looking for. It took me a few tries to find the right concept. I tried putty but it was too heavy. I considered more noodles but was reminded that would require asking my mom. In fighting with my sister over a shared walkman, we sacrifice a few headphones to say the least. That’s how I knew what sat underneath the styrofoam padding on the ear piece of the headset. And if you don’t know what that looks like, it’s a metal disk with holes in it on one side. I added it to the point at the top of the tower with lots of scotch tape. Later I would lie to my dad when he asked where the headphones were for the walkman.
I dug around multiple cookie tins now housing sewing thread and needles but they look so sad, thin. I went back to look for more needles and noticed the one on my grandma’s sewing machine was larger. I stuck it into one of the holes on the headphone disk with too much Elmers white glue.
Now for color. I used green markers to color the cardboard base to represent grass around the tower. A few weeks later, my sister would complain that her markers were dried out, specifically the green colors. The final touch would be spraying the tower gold with spray paint.I over sprayed my model in the backyard and stained the grass. The tower was dripping.
Transporting the model to school was another critical part of the project. I carried this thing like my life depended on it as the noodles swayed from my house to the bus stop and then to the classroom. We all read our report and presented our models or drawings. After several perfect igloos made from sugar cubes with cotton balls for the surrounding snow. And, a log cabin made from popsicle sticks and people figurines even, my interpretation of the Eiffel tower made of spaghetti noodles, and then a Native American teepee made from real cut fabric sewn onto posts with a forest surrounding. Quelle horreur.
I would later learn that a lot of American parents channeled their own craft skills into these projects. Anytime I see a Michael’s store, I think about how I grew up more MacGyver than Michaels.
