Ammonite fossils again, this time with dragons

You may remember my fascination with ammonite fossils, those amazing Fibonacci spirals aged from roughly 66 to 300,000 years (I hope I remember that correctly!)

Well, I've been making pendants and earrings with them, most recently in bronze-toned owl frames, but I had sold all my owl earrings and had no more ammonites of the right size and thinness to make more!  What to do?

Well, I'd thought about ammonites with dragons, and had some slightly smaller ammonites and dragon charms I thought might work, so here's what happened:

First I had to set up a supply tray, in this case a shoebox lid, with all the tools, equipment, and pieces I'd need.

And in a spot next to the storage drawers, my coffee in its beautiful cup, made by Joelene, who lives not far from us and whose etsy shop is  PotterybyJoelene .

Then I looked at the available ammonites, which happened to be heat-sealed in clear plastic, picked a few that looked possible, and held my dragon charms up to check the fit. 

Ah, but those dragon charms have already been altered to accept the ammonites: here's what had to happen first.

bX-wnrswiFirst, the dragons in their original form.
Notice that I'm now using a smaller and less cluttered work tray, which I can even set on the supply tray to keep everything close at hand.

Next, cutting the interior portion of the tails.  I'm not sure whether you can see that this takes 4 cuts, and that they're not flimsy joins.  The one-winged dragon in the pic is what happens if I hold the piece the wrong way while snipping.

 Once I have 2 open pendants, I file the sharp edges of the metal with jewelry files and sometimes a diamond dust nail file or even an emery board, both so that they won't catch your hair and so that there's enough flat back to allow a solid join. 

Currently I'm using a superglue plus sometimes Aleene's Glass and Metal glue and/or Beacon's Quick Grip.

And here they are: front and back as they're lined up and glued,

 

 

and finally, the finished earrings.

I'm pleased with these, and considering more possibilities.  I think I have one pair of tiny ammonite slices that may fit in a mermaid's tail.  And maybe a vintage monkey or scarab with enough of the right kind of space. Stay tuned! 

WIP -- obsidian and ammonities

I've actually managed to acquire some obsidian needles -- these are longish, thinnish, more or less pointed naturally formed pieces of obsidian that apparently are found in only a few  places. I absolutely love them--they're obviously natural/raw/primitive, but lend themselves nicely to at least some of my ideas about use.

Here are some pics of the raw stuff along with a few becoming something else:the last one is some less pointy pieces I'm thinking of offering for sale -- among other things, they make lovely-sounding windchimes. Will the sound keep the walking dead away from your house?  I don't know, but it can't hurt.

In addition, I've been working on some of the arrowheads seen in the last post, plus some ammonites I've acquired recently--these pics (and some of the pieces) aren't ready to list yet, but I thought some of you might like to see what I'm up to.  The pics also include one pair of steampunk earrings with fairies--not quite so new, but I think not previously   photographed. So here goes:

As always, comments, questions, etc. are welcome, even encouraged--let me know someone's actually looking!

WIP--ear gages

Several young friends and a couple of customers have suggested that some of my work would go well in ear gages, those larger-than-earring-sized objects that have been appearing in a lot of lobes (at least around here).
Our friend/sometimes roommate/partner of Chase Carolne has 00gages in opal or opalite that look really good, so I recruited her as a consultant and bought some gages for experimenting. I also bought some Easy Cast, which I can now recommend - it sets fairly quickly and perfectly clear, unlike the Diamond Glaze that was giving me problems.  It's a bit harder to use--a 2  part resin that requires measuring and mixing-- but I think it's worth it.
We stuck the tubes to fac-up packing tape to hold the resin in. Relatively successful. though next time I think we'll use a see-through surface.
I set some of the gages up with things I thought might work & ranthem past Caroline and Chase. Then last night, while Caroline was at school, Chase and I mixed the stuff up, sort of layered it and added things, and the pics below are what we have now.
Measurung: Each batch of 6 oz. or less requires 3 plastic vessels and 2 plastic or wood stirrers, all of which have to be tossed after use. So. I bought 100 small thin white plastic cups , which we marked (on the outside) with a permanent marker line at the same level. We could see the mark fromthe inside (THIN plastic cup) so just poured each part to the mark. Then we poured them together & stirred (we were using washed popsicle sticks, but I'm hoping to get something next time we go to the restaurant supply place--till then we have some thickish skewers, but I don't think round is the ideal shape) for the required 2 min, then moved to another cup and stirred with a clean stick for another 2 min. It worked really well.

Anyway, so there we were with a cup of goop and quite a few gages, in silcone, wood, ad horn. We also have one metal one, but we were only doing tubes and it's closed.   Preliminary results suggest that
1. we need more research on glue to hold anything to silicone.
2. silicone gages work nicely filled with resin, but may work even better as molds.
3. wooden gages can have things glued on, and are dynamite with resin and inclusions.
Silicone and horn (red flowers) are also great.
4. Diamond Glaze, which we tried using to hold a few things that didn't require transparency, stays runny in silicone & is a poor choice for this project.
5. We used 2or 3 different Beacon glues--experiment, remember--and all worked well with wood but not silicone. I triend some Flexible, Stretchable with the silicone, but it was old and runny. I'll give it another shot with a new jar--the problem is that the silicone tubes flex off the glue, so that seems like one way to go. Another may be to use some sort of caulk, but we're not going there yet. If anyone's had any success with a adhesive for silicone, do please let us know.

So this is what we have--final cleanup, any sanding, etc. still to be done. A little more pouring to top things up, too, but you can at least get an idea of where this is going.