Highlighting the Great Outdoors Inside
by
Adele Kurtz
2 Materials
$12
2 Hours
Medium
Hubby & I are BigTime Collectors of rocks and nature items.*
He has a knack for finding them wherever we roam.
Then it's my job to refashion them into works of all shapes and sizes from jewelry to sculpture to garden art to waterfalls.
Some are too good to leave outdoors.
Here's an example of a piece that had been buried a few million years that we brought indoors to better appreciate.
Please look at my other posts to see how we have created an outdoor sculpture garden and mini utopia over the years as well as jewelry etc .
This table was made by stacking several pieces of PETRIFIED WOOD. The base is highly unusual with a basin carved in the center, perfect for spotlighting a rare specimen. It was probably a home for nesting prehistoric creatures. So we chose a calcified white agate to spotlight for now.
Here's a side view of the table. We put it on an outdoor mat to avoid scratching the floor as we dragged pieces of heavy rock around. We were able to cut the rubber & sisal mat with pruning shears!
BTW: This floor is real rock too that we acid-etched (dip tiles in Muriatic bath for a few minutes, then stop action in cool clean water) to bring out mineral colors. I gave a pattern to the tile guy and laid the pieces out ahead of him to get the look we got going here.
Then we added an L.E.D. strip light out of sight -- unless you lay on the floor.
Hubby had to lay on the floor and push with his legs to scoot this over to hide the outlet, while I hovered overhead to make sure the stacked rocks didn't tumble. Hey whatever works!
I use these hideaway LED strips in many places around the house. I use cordless motion-detector strips for closets and stairways. I use plug ins when I want ambient light 24/7 -- they last forever at nominal cost. Amazon gives you a break for ordering 3-6 at one time.
I hung one of my paintings above: "Isabella Under the Canopy."
A pretty combo -- don'tcha think?
Thanks for looking.
*Review your local laws before digging them up. In the vast open mountains and deserts of our 4-Corners region, since 2009, each collector is restricted to 25-35 pounds per day (plus one specimen piece), 250 to 350 pounds/year.
Petrified wood is a legal collectible fossil, vertebrates are not. The spirit of the law is intended that we each LEAVE THE LAND AS WE FOUND IT, PRESERVE and RESPECT.
Current laws, including weight restrictions, are under review for amendment, by a geologist Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke, of Montana, who cites that many large pieces of petrified wood, for example, are being left to disintegrate in the deserts or being chopped up just to satisfy legal restrictions.
Of course we'll swear that these giant pieces were collected pre-2009 (Hey Hubby was born in 1947, officer, and he has been collecting since he was a kid.) In our neck of the woods we believe there is a preservation value to maintaining the spirit of mineral collecting for private use. And in our methods, we tend to leave them as intact as possible, never for sale.
Hey you never know what creatures might dig up and appreciate a million years from now!
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2 of 3 comments
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Good description, Wendy.
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I would LOVE to have this in my home, it's a one of a kind!
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