The Celtic Druid's Egg Pendants

We have added two new Celtic "Druid's Egg" pendants to our Etsy shop.  These Druid's Eggs, which are our original design, were crafted from air dry clay.  A rich copper patina was added to give these pendants the appearance of aged bronze.  The pendant featured above was beaded with copper colored glass beads and old African trade brass beads.  The pendant featured below hangs from a leather cord that can be tied to accommodate many necklines, and is easily removed if you have a favorite chain you prefer to use.

Fossil Walrus Ivory Tribal Hook Necklace

This is a collaborative piece--Dave has carved the beautiful tribally inspired hook from fossil walrus ivory, and Jo beaded the necklace. The 15 inch ball necklace has been adorned with old bauxite beads and old ostrich shell beads from Africa. The hook hangs from a bone bead and copper wire. A gift box is included!

New Items Added to the Cache!

It's been a while since we added any new items to the cache. It's not that we don't have any other "goodies" hidden away in the studio, it's just that the weather has finally warmed up here in central Oregon and Jo has been playing outside lately :)

This photo, is of some gorgeous, very old, 20mm African Krobo beads from Ghana. They have a wonderful beach glass aqua color and feel to them.

If you are interested in primitive and organic supplies, take a peek into our Cache!

Old African Terra Cotta Beads

I finally found some more of these gorgeous terra cotta beads!

These old, handmade terra cotta beads are from Africa and are beautiful in their imperfection. You can find these and other tribally inspired supplies in our Grizzly Mountain Cache supply shop.

New African Krobo Beads

We've just added some new African Krobo beads to our Grizzly Mountain Cache supply shop on Etsy.com!

What are African Krobo Beads?

Krobo powder glass beads are made in vertical molds fashioned out of a special, locally dug clay. Most molds have a number of depressions, designed to hold one bead each, and each of these depressions, in turn, has a small central depression to hold the stem of a cassava leaf. The mold is filled with finely ground glass that can be built up in layers in order to form sequences and patterns of different shapes and colors. The technique could be described as being somewhat similar to creating a sand "painting" or to filling a bottle with different-colored sands and is called the "vertical-mold dry powder glass technique". When cassava leaf stems are used, these will burn away during firing and leave the bead perforation. Certain powder glass bead variants, however, receive their perforations after firing, by piercing the still hot and pliable glass with a hand-made, pointed metal tool. Firing takes place in clay kilns until the glass fuses.