Like my button? Can't see it? Well, I could when I saw this left over scrap piece of bark mammoth ivory. This little piece was cut off from the scales Kirk bought to put on the handle of one of his knives.
The scales for the one knife, Kirk thinks was around $125.00. I'm only referring to the cost so you can get an idea of just how elite this piece of mammoth ivory is. Bark ivory sells for big bucks.
What I saw when I looked at this mammoth ivory piece is a flower. Now maybe you can see a bit of what I saw. The first step to creating this was to grind the chunk to approximately the desired thickness. Then I drew the flower on the back and ground near the pencil lines.
The next move was to use hand files and sand paper to refine the grind. When that was done, I used checkering tools to create the lines that ran from the edge toward the center.
That gave me this. And deciding this button was still a bit thick, I to ground a little more, taking off some more ivory from the back.
A little varnish to add some shine and voila, a cool looking, flowery button. Look for it on Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheCalicoBush?ref=ss_profile
but give me a couple days because I've one more coat of polish to apply, and I still need to photograph the button for the Etsy site, along with attaching the button to a card.
Now it is up to the new owner of this unique treasure to come up with an imaginative way to use this mammoth bark button.
I can see it on a leather purse, a pillow, a hat, or a sweater, maybe even on a wool jacket. There are so... many possibilities. I can't wait to see where it goes. Hopefully, the new owner will share photos of this button's end destination.
Beautiful!
ReplyDelete