twenty-one abalone necklace and earrings

Yippee! Again, Tom found some beautiful abalone - this time a necklace and some earrings! You may not know it, but abalone shell is very difficult to work with, because when it is cut, the dust generated is really toxic. We have lots of abalone shells lying around our house, but I haven't been clever enough to come up with an idea on how to use them artistically. The are kind of tacky in their natural state - kind of like big bowls with holes in them. The best I came up with was to border a little flower garden: I alternated shells - one rounded side up, and one rounded side down.  The cool thing is that they have natural holes in them, so the water drains right out.

I love abalone's many colors. It reminds me of one of my roosters, which is a black, Long-Crower. You know how an oil slick on the pavement has iridescent colors winding through it? That's what my gorgeous rooster looks like - purple, green, and blue feathers sparkle in the sunshine. Every time someone comes over, I'm constantly dragging them out to look at him. They usually aren't as impressed as I am - ha ha.

Here's a close up of the necklace.