Spark plug dragon fly by Heather Solberg
Heather Solberg’s spark plug critters are as cute as can be. And they’re pretty easy to make if you’ve got a little creativity and know your way around a blow torch. Solberg’s spark plug critter-making was borne of a love of arts and crafts projects and pure boredom.
“When I started dating my husband, he would spend a lot of time in his workshop working on various projects so I started poking around looking for something to keep me busy,” she says. “I noticed some used spark plugs sitting around thought, ‘that would make a cute dragon fly.’”
In a moment’s time, Solberg was off on a mission. She found a discarded wire hanger and used a pair of needle nose pliers to bend pieces of it to resemble wings and feet. She’d never used a welding torch before, so she recruited her then-boyfriend’s help in welding the hanger-wire wings and feet onto the sparkplug and Voila – a dragon fly was born! So excited was Solberg about her new creation that she quickly came up with a few more designs, including a spark plug fish, a spark plug gator and a tiny spark plug biplane.
“It kept me busy and turned out being something we could have fun working on together,” Solberg says. “At least I thought it was fun. My husband probably preferred to work on other projects but since we had just started dating, he was pretty willing to help out.”
Solberg posted her spark plug creations on Etsy.com, an ecommerce website for the artsy-crafty set and a customer quickly claimed her spark plug gator, adorned with a set of screw legs and a pair of screw-head eyeballs (which she cut using a grinder). Meanwhile, love dallied among the dragon flies and other spark plug critters. Heather and her blow torch-wielding honey are happily married and off on a two-year honeymoon to Asia, but she’s got a box full of discarded spark plugs waiting for her return to the U.S. Perhaps a few of them be transformed into a parade of Chinese dragons?!
What can you make out of a spark plug? We’d love to see. Leave a comment with your story or post a pic of your spark plug creation on our E3 Spark Plugs Facebook fan page.
