The materials are definitely more limited – toilet paper, toothbrushes, bath towels, bed sheets – so in county jail, the strange contraband runs a little more crafty.

Like the solid wad of dried paint chips, bigger than a golf ball, methodically peeled off the wall and pressed together, found in an inmate’s sock and likely intended for swinging and whacking.

“How long would it take to make that?” Sheriff Guy Desjardins said looking at the paint ball and its cousin, another collection of pressed paint chips that resemebled a roll of quarters. “How long they got? They got nothing but time.”

In the Androscoggin County Jail, anything altered is considered contraband. Officers do a search every day and more thorough shakedowns at random, said Lt. Jeff Chute, assistant jail administrator.

On a regular basis, they find toilet paper dice – wet and pressed into perfect squares. About a year ago, they took an inmate’s rose bouquet made entirely of toilet paper, petals, stems, leaves and all.

Chute bought a vase for it and put the delicate bouquet on his desk.

“There’s talent in there,” Desjardins said. “I almost wish we had yellow, red and green toilet paper. He probably could have gone all the way with that.”

They’ve found crosses and necklaces woven from linens and, once, an intricate noose woven from a bed sheet.

“It was intended to be used – luckily, we discovered it before it was,” Chute said.

During one shakedown, officers leafing through a large-type Readers Digest found the center carved out to accommodate a toothbrush shiv. Chute held onto it, too. He said he hides the items in empty cells to train new staff what to look for.

Tattoos haven’t been the problem that they are at the Maine State Prison – inmates here don’t have access to motors to run the ink guns – and as of six months ago, they were about brought to a halt with a new no-ink-pens policy.

Desjardins said inmates only get short golf pencils now. They do less damage to the walls and can’t be used to freehand tattoos.

Nothing weird crafted from pencils. Yet.