Wind in the floating clouds

These festive decorations are fun Eternal Link Cross pendant the whole family to make BY JILL FANUZZI

Shooting Stars

Tiny twinklers shine brightly on a tree branch, wreath, or garland.

For one star: *

2 one-inch wood stars (sold precut in crafts stores)

Acrylic paint** (metallic gold or silver, plus red, blue, and green)

Paint brushes (0A-inch brush to paint stars, thin brushes to decorate)

12-inch gold or silver pipe cleaner

Pencil

1-inch mini spring pin (clothespin)

Thick craft glue, such as Aleene's Tacky Glue

1. Paint one side of each star. Let dry for about 10 minutes, then decorate (see photo, below, for ideas). Let dry again, about 10 minutes.

2. Wrap pipe cleaner Flower charm bracelet around pencil; leave 1 inch straight at each end. Pull one end through center hole in spring pin; twist it around itself to fasten.

3. Glue the stars together (painted-sides out), sandwiching the other end of the pipe cleaner between the stars. Clamp stars in place with extra spring pins until glue dries, about an hour.

Foam Frames

For hanging favorite photos on the family tree or giving as gifts.

Paper edgers (pattern-edge scissors)

9 x 12-inch colored foam sheets

Pencil

Regular straight-edge scissors

Round hole punch

1/8-inch-wide ribbon, cut in 7-inch pieces

Embellishments: buttons, sequins, beads, and rubber stamps and ink

Thick craft glue

Photos

Double-stick tape

1. For rectangular frame: Using paper edgers, cut a 4 x 5-inch Graduated bead drop pendant out of foam. Cut a hole out of center for photo: Draw a 2 x 3-inch rectangle in center of foam rectangle. Poke a hole in the center of outline with straight scissors. Starting at the hole and moving outward, cut a rectangle out of the center of frame, using outline as a guide. For wreath: Use paper edgers to cut a circle out of foam about 6 inches in diameter, then use straight scissors to cut a circle about 3 inches in diameter out of the center. For square/diamond: Cut a 5-inch square out of foam, then cut a 2 1/2-inch square out of the center.

2. Punch a hole in top center of frame. Thread a 7-inch piece of ribbon through hole and tie ends together for hanging.

3. Using craft glue, decorate with buttons or other embellishments.

4. When glue is dry, tape edges of photo to back of frame so that image is centered in the frame hole.

5. To make backing: Cut out a piece of foam the same color as the frame and HEART LINK DROP EARRINGS 1/4-inch wider on all sides than photo. Run a bead of glue around the edges of backing. Attach to frame so picture back is covered.

Hanukkah Stars

Display a grouping in a window or suspend from doorways or stair railings.

12 x 18-inch sheet of royal blue or white Stiffened Eazy Felt (makes 6)

Scissors

Iridescent or blue cellophane gift wrap or aluminum foil

Craft glue

1/2-inch-wide white satin ribbon, cut in various lengths

1. For one star: Using photo, below, as a guide, cut Heart Band pendant 5-inch 6-point stars from stiffened felt. Cut a 1-inch star shape out of center of each star.

2. Cut a 5-inch square out of cellophane (or foil). Spread a thin layer of glue on one side of a star and press it onto the cellophane. Spread glue on the other star and press it on the other side of the cellophane, making sure stars align. Set aside to dry, about 30 minutes, or until the felt doesn't slide off the cellophane.

3. When dry, trim excess cellophane. Parents should poke a hole through the top with scissors and thread a ribbon through it; tie ends for hanging.

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Jan. 30--Matt Thompson might be the last of a dying breed. Or he might be living proof that everything cycles back around.

"Neon has gone from being cool to not cool to cheap necklaces again," said Thompson, a "blowing tube" draped over his neck at his northeast Minneapolis workplace, which is filled with eye candy. "We've gone through ups and downs, but we're alive and well."

There are about a dozen artisans in town, but Thompson, 42, is one of the few who does restoration as well as concocting original signage. He's spiffing up a Cafe Brenda sign for restaurateur Brenda Langton's home and creating a 3 1/2-foot-wide replica of the Grain Belt billboard for a couple who live just down the Mississippi from that riverfront icon. An 8-foot-wide Coca-Cola sign filling much of the floor space is among his active restoration projects.

Along with "every suburban guy who has a pool table and wants a personalized beer sign," Thompson's best customers are members of the Minnesota Street Rod Association, who want vivid signs for their garages "that are era-correct to the 1950s."

Most of the signs filling Thompson's studio go back farther than that. A Hamm's "Dancing Goblet" marquee is first among equals among the beer logos, cheap pendants all of them neon but most advertising long-gone brands: Schmidt's City Club, Gettelman, King Cole, North Star Lager, Mineral Spring, Kaier's. On one wall is a large red Mobil winged horse, on another a rare Washburn-Crosby Gold Medal Flour sign.

Most of the signs are part of Thompson's personal collection, perhaps available for the right price and "awaiting their turn to be restored. They've gone through their time of being just junk."

The latest competition: inexpensive LED lighting.

"There was a successful sales hype by the LED salesmen about them being cheaper and more efficient," he said. "What we're finding is that modern neon is just as economical," not to mention more environmentally sound than polymer plastics. "It doesn't get more green than glass, which is made from sand," he said.

An artistic bent

Artistic pursuits have deep roots in Thompson's family tree. His father, Orell, worked at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and then became a toymaker, opening the first store in the refurbished Butler Square. His brother, Mike, has been editorial cartoonist at the Detroit Free Press since 1998.

"Being exposed to that artistic cheap rings is probably what helped me stick with this," he said. "In this business, there's got to be a love of the craft, 'cause you're not going to buy a house in the Bahamas working in the neon business."

Still, Thompson was drawn to this then-fading vocation, enrolling in neonmaking classes in the Colonial Warehouse in Minneapolis' Warehouse District at age 19. Among his teachers was sculptor Brad Jirka, longtime instructor at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design.

"Being a glass bender is theoretically easy, but technically hard to do," said Jirka. "It's pretty much like alchemy, an old process that hasn't changed much. It's been updated a bit, but frankly you can set up the same system that someone used in 1902 and get good results."

After taking those classes, Thompson apprenticed for four years in Honolulu, then helped set up a neon-glass shop in Amsterdam. He taught at the University of Delft in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and worked in Milan, Italy, and Dusseldorf, Germany, "just goofing around and showing people how to blow neon tubing," before returning to open Skyline Neon in 1993.

Now he's there every day, usually in a T-shirt and jeans, tracing outlines on paper and "bending tube" over one of three flames. It's painstaking work, and occasionally painful, too. After years of working with glass that must reach 1,160 degrees to bend, his hands can tolerate some heat.

"A couple of puffs of smoke off your 'asbestos fingers' and a few choice words, and it's back to work," he said. "The pain only lasts for about 20 seconds."

Word of mouth and his website (www.skylineneonsigns.com) have been key to his success in a down economy. "Long-term relationships keep you going," he said. "It would be a cheap tiffany go to get into the business now."

At least until, in the natural cycle of all matters cultural, neon goes away and comes back "in" again.

Bill Ward --612-673-7643

NEON FACTS

--Neon is in the periodic table of elements, in the "noble gases" series.

--Georges Claude put up the world's first neon sign in Paris in 1910.

--In 1923, Claude sold two neon gas signs to a Los Angeles Packard dealership for $12,000 each.

--Making the lower-case "e" silver bracelets require eight separate maneuvers.

--About 85 percent of "neon" signage is actually made with argon, which is light blue. Neon is clear and used to make red, pink and orange lights.

--There are about 80 colors available in neon signs.

--Most of the tubes that Matt Thompson and other neon artisans use are made at one factory, on the island of Murano near Venice, Italy.

--Neon atoms have 10 protons, 10 neutrons and 10 electrons.

BILL WARD

Credit: Star Tribune, Minneapolis