This lady makes a product called bag-of-bones. They are plastic attachments for making the pot people. I didn't order them but her site has many cute pot people ideas. Be sure to check out the project of the month and go down to the bottom and click on photos! Cute stuff!(my fav is the one in the galvanized tub, I drooled over that shower-head for days, finally e-mailed her to see about getting one!) blessings-sherri Here is a link that might be useful: Annies bag-of-bones site

You can't miss it (even I can't miss it)! From I-20, go north on University. Turn in at the very first right-hand entrance to the park, & follow the lane around. It's one-lane, one-way, & it takes you past the little train depot & several parking areas. It curves left (north), & you'll see the pavilion on the right.

Hi Cheri, I've been meaning to respond for awhile and now am running out the door, so here's the quick answer and I can give more later if you want. Your plans sound lovely and as far as painting the hardware, I say go for it. The worst that can happen is it doesn't work out and you start over with new hardware. :-) My first concern though is how will you clean all the crevices to get every speck of oil/grundge off of the hardware so the paint will adhere over the long-term? You'll need a good solution for that. Next, spray-painting may leave a powder-coat, rough sort of finish which might be hard to keep clean, but may work. I recommend a line of products called Modern Masters. I've done a couple of metal painting projects and it is cool stuff. You will likely have to hand-paint. I would experiment on something else before you attempt your actual hardware, as it may take a few tries to get it right. I know I needed a lot more of the copper metal paint for the true verdigris (sp?) finish I was striving for, than instructions called for. Overall, the wear and tear of using handles is my biggest concern. Seems like cleaning, priming, painting and even sealing might be in order to pull this off, but that's me. I personally would give it a go. Hope this helps.

I've started using walnuts or pistachios instead of pine nuts: Making Pesto? Hold the Pine Nuts NY Times Op-Ed by Jonathan C. Slaght Oct. 19, 2015 (Excerpted) MINNEAPOLIS — AT this time of year, kitchens across North America are filled with the aroma of freshly picked basil, fistfuls of peeled garlic bulbs, hunks of Parmesan, cruets of olive oil and jars of pine nuts. It’s pesto season. Mixing these ingredients into a delicious sauce for use throughout the winter months is an end-of-summer tradition. The tiny, delectable pine nut is often viewed as essential to a classic pesto “alla Genovese,” but it is the most vexing ingredient — for the high cost of even a small packet or jar of them. They also come at another kind of price: The pine nut industry may be contributing to the crash of an ecosystem. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a majority of pine nuts imported into the United States come from the Korean pine tree, a keystone species found primarily in the southern parts of the Russian far east. The temperate rain forest of this wild corner of Russia represents a mere 1 percent of the country’s territory yet contains about a quarter of its endangered vertebrate species. ....An ever-expanding road network, driven by selective logging, is exposing more and more of the region to the covetous reach of pine nut harvesters. Once collected, the cones are shucked and the nuts, still in their shells, are sold to Chinese merchants, who haul truckloads across the border to China. From there, they are shipped to overseas markets. Depending on the market price, local traders will pay about $6 for a sack of Korean pine cones, which can hold on average about 125 cones. Last year, I (the author) encountered a group of collectors in the forest that had filled 4,000 sacks — half a million cones — in just six weeks. At the peak of the harvest season, the forests are populated with thousands of collectors in hundreds of makeshift camps. The global demand is making this harvest unsustainable. The entire Korean pine ecosystem (which supports numerous species depending on the pine nuts for winter food) could collapse if it continues.