A Bit Seedy?

Hi!
Just for something different, I convinced Jeff to come along to an avocado seed carving workshop!

A lovely friend of mine, Jaana, makes these gorgeous natural pendants out of avocado seeds and she’s started doing workshops. I’d been wanting to pop along to one for a while.

The above designs were done by Jeff… he split his in half. I am waiting for mine to dry and pop apart themselves? (Maybe)

Have you ever tried this?
Its such a beautiful process. I can see it being addictive. Just need to get some carving tools.
The seeds were soaked so it made them easy to peel and work with.

Its a bit like magic… you score the surface of the seed or cut in and after a few minutes, the cut area turns this amazing burnt orange colour!

People in the class did a wide variety of patterns and designs. It was pretty fabulous!
Jaana taught us the basics then showed us how to embed things into the seed as well… I did a little blue resin button (made by Jaana for us to use in the class)

A bit hard to see the little bit of… damn it I forget the name of this rock all the time. We panned for them and collected them a while back.

And because my brain is useless I also forgot the name of this seed that I embedded into the Avocado seed! But its a COOL seed with the wrinkles!

And because I was in an embedding mood, I popped a cute little silver bead thingy into my feather design.

Of course… the seeds will shrink as they dry and change colour.
I only have one to show you… one I bought from Jaana a while back.

Still some of the orange colour in there!
And on the back it curves in

We got to take a lot of seeds home so I grabbed a metal skewer and did another couple in front of the telly that night –

I am looking forward to getting some proper tools to experiment more

And last but not least, I carved a Totoro onto a seed! (Fav. Japanese character from the Ghibli Movie Studios and if you’ve not had the pleasure, check them out! There are some excellent movies to see (my favourite being ‘Spirited Away’))
I digress…

Because I am NOT an artist when it comes to drawing even a convincing stick figure, I had to trace the character then try to copy it onto my seed.
I am happy it actually LOOKS like Totoro!
I wonder what they will all look like when they shrink and dry?
I’ll let you know.
It really was an enjoyable few hours of creativeness and meeting a few new people!

And next time you get an avocado seed… have a go! Its pretty cool fun 🙂

Cheers!

(PS… Leaving you with todays Fossil Bluff view)(Low clouds today!)