DIY Shark's Tooth Necklace

I've been walking past our jar of collected shark's teeth for months trying to figure out what to do with them. Well, I didn't figure out what to do with them but rather one of them...a chic necklace! I was going to document the steps but little did I know within a few hours it was complete and I hadn't taken one picture. So give me credit for at least showing you the finished product, bokay?

We go camping on Cumberland Island every year and collect sometimes hundreds of shark's teeth in one visit. My favorite one has always been a very large fossilized tooth from an extinct Hemipristis shark so I decided to use it in my necklace...


Step 1: Find a shark's tooth. (you can always order them online, check Ebay or contact me) It's nearly next to impossible to reproduce so you don't have to worry about being sold a "fake" shark's tooth.

Step 2: Paint the "gum". I used a gold enamel paint that I got at Michaels Arts store. You can tell where the "gum" and tooth starts because of the texture. Also, the enamel won't stick on the slick tooth so don't worry about being perfect. Let dry for a few hours. I put mine in the freezer to speed up the process.

Step 3: Wrap with gold wire (also got this at Michaels). I used this tutorial and tweaked it a little. I liked the look of one wire around each side and NO wire around the middle part. It's easy to undo and redo until you get it to where you like it.

Step 4. Attach to a long chain with needle-nose pliers. Done!

P.S. My apologies about the grainy photo, we don't have our digital camera at the moment so I had to take it with my phone!

Country Living

Pumpkin picking in a local patch

My canned pickled okra!

Blue LOOOVES the cotton field beside our house (not that you can tell or anything)

Get it HERE

Over the past few months I have been getting used to this new life called living in the middle of NOWHERE. It has had its up's and down's but altogether it has taught me quite a bit. I'm learning things like how to can and preserve food from my sweet 70 something neighbor, what processes it takes to prepare land to be farmed and how to live in a town that still lives off of roadside veggie stands and really lives off of it's own land and agriculture.

Yes, it has been quite a learning experience and with that comes a step back from technology (as you may have noticed) and me being a bit more removed from TV and computer. It has been altogether refreshing. I seriously suggest everyone do it for a bit, just to step back and learn things that you can't get from a web article or TV. You would be amazed at what you get from it. At first you might go through a "guilt" phase just because you feel as if the innerweb needs you (especially if you write a blog or are an avid Facebooker), but once you get past that you really start to see clearly. I definitely had a few weeks of "Are you ok? I just noticed you haven't been posting, tweeting, etc ."(Which in this day I guess means one is clearly unstable or having a secret life crisis??) It is sad, actually.

With this awakening of Josh and my back-to-basics life we have been on this kick of wanting to buy a mini-farm and live more self-sufficiently. If you're wanting to learn how to do anything from keeping a one acre farm to harvesting and storing food to keeping bees to making your own wine I HIGHLY suggest a book we have been reading called The Self-Sufficient Life And How To Live It by John Seymour, it's amazing!