crystal ball~~quartz
 

Well, I've decided to try some "sculpture" . Combined with a wonderful seller at
Ebay I managed to make this crystal ball. It is the second one I've tried and
I think it came out nicely.

I am a rockhound and the old urges are returning, now that I have some time.
So luckily for me, this one seller on Ebay has just what I needed!

What do you think? This is the same ball from two different views. The sharp crystals are only on the top 1/4 of the ball, the rest are tumbled smooth
quartz.

Ooooooo MrsD this is sooooooooo pretty.

DO you take orders :D

Some day maybe... but these are not "cheap" to make.

Here is the first ball...I did this just before Xmas. It is rose quartz, fire agate and jade/aventurine mixed on a larger ball. It took 2 weeks to make. The crystal quartz one only took 3 days. It is like putting a puzzle together with no picture or plan. And the pieces fall off etc. I have a grabby thing to help get them back...but after about the 50th drop language gets a bit colorful here @@#$%^&*.

I am hoping to do an amethyst one soon, but I have to get more stones for that.(they cost more too);)

Wow that would look great in my living room :D

You are very taleneted!

THese are sooooo great. You should sell em at the AA Art Fair!

I love that! Let us know when you are ready to sell some!

I love natural elements; I'm a leaf freak myself. :crazy:

Don't know why but I find leaves to be the most amazing things and so varied in their beauty. I just gravitate toward things with leaves on them.

Tootsie

Absolutely Gorgeous!
What do you use for a 'base' to affix the stones to?

I'm a 'rock' lover, too. spendy hobby are rocks, sometimes, but well worth admiring a budding collection!

Keep on creating!

I have been doing projects for a few years now.
I often cover plain wood (boxes, napkin holders, CD box, I did a shelf once)
with slabs. (there is a lapidarist who sells me slabs up North). This is a puddingstone CD holder I did one year (jasper conglomerate slabs). This guy makes chess sets, and sells his scrap as left overs).

These balls are on styrofoam base.
I got the idea from a ball of rocks I bought in a mineral store once. I think it came from China. I have a collection of crystals/minerals on the shelf above my monitor. They are fun to look at while typing/thinking/crashing on the net:p

wow mrsD...your crystal ball is great!!:p


ps as you are a rockhound you would LOVE my collection....I have geodes and other crystalized rocks from the SW African Namib desert and other places I have traveled to.

Oh, sigh...Cheri...
 

I bet you have some nice stuff.;) Can you take a few pictures?

I just bought some Botswana agates for a song..on Ebay. I have found that if you look long enough and are patient, some deals do come along. These are small bits with lovely lines in them. I got 3lbs for 2.75 and combined shipping with 6 lbs of rose quartz. These little agates might do very well on an unfinished birdhouse I found a JoAnn's fabric/hobby store. I discovered that JoAnn's is much nicer for unpainted stock than Michaels (which is getting too expensive too).

I am very amazed that Ebay has so many sellers for minerals and crystals.
Some are very inexpensive from China, but I have resisted them so far. 2 months shipping makes me uneasy. But each afternoon, I scope out new sellers. I have a trick== I click on who is bidding against me, to see how determined they are, and then find what that person bought recently...this opens up the selling market quickly for me, instead of endless searching.

The best deals so far are from people reselling stuff from old estate sales. These folks don't really know the value of stones, so I can pick them up that way affordably. But sometimes I have to sit on my hands and not buy too much! LOL I put them in "watch this item" and by the next day or so the massive urge to bid has passed ;)

I am also hand polishing rough Petoskey stones, that I am finding on Ebay. One seller sent me a note in email... he used to be our mailman! Many years ago and remembered our name and house...how funny was that? So we met again!

I love rocks too. Don't know what it is about them, but they are so varied and so pretty.

Where I live we have quartz rocks in the soil. So I have a few here and there.

Could you suggest the best glue for attaching the rocks or gems to something?

Tootsie

suggestions..
 

If you use a styrofoam base (and there are some nice ones, different shapes now in stores)..you have to use special glue for styrofoam (this is like extra thick Elmer's) It is not quick to set, so you have to hold it, prop it, or something for at least 15-30 minutes (the heavier the longer)

For the slabs on wood I use E6000 Clear. (not the epoxy type)
http://www.eclecticproducts.com/e6000.htm

If you want an exciting thing...there is a coating resin, which I am investigating myself, called Envirotex Lite.
This will shine up and make rocks look spectacular.
They use this in bars and restaurants to coat table tops... but the rock guy I know coats his large pieces with it...
http://www.sculpt.com/technotes/Envirotex_tech.htm
It is spectacular--- really! So I am planning on getting this soon. Maybe will take on vacation, since temp is important, and it is too cold here now even indoors for it.
You could glue down your leaves...to any clean surface and pour the Envirotex over it and make a "painting" or plate or whatever... Believe me the final result is fab..and it does not yellow.

Here is another site with ideas...
http://www.save-on-crafts.com/enpr.html
you can do an infinite number of ideas with this stuff!

Someday I want a MrsD original! :D

more photos...
 

I updated my "power shelf" collection, today, with some new Ebay treasures, so I took some pics:

#1 is the whole shelf --it is above my monitor.

#2 is the left side close up:
I started with the large purple fluorite on the right when I was a teen, this was from a museum shop. The large quartz to the left I bought on my honeymoon from a uranium mine gift shop in WaWa Canada. Most of the things are inexpensive (we don't have mega bucks to spend on things like this). I collected spheres just because I like that shape. Those in the far left back are not stone.
I put them there just for "texture".

#3-- has my new crystal ball that I experimented with, and a wolf print sculpture I made on vacation several years ago, from the casts I took made by the wolf clan that lived on our other island. I'd go over there in a boat after a rain, and see if there were good tracks. If so I made casts of them, then reversed the cast with a new casting to get the negative effect. It is made out of plaster and found objects from the shore. The other things are gifts, and collected items from over the years.
The large pyrite was just given to me yesterday, from a nice guy I met on Ebay! The black crow's skull I just got for my birthday last November. It is the most expensive item on the shelf. It is a true to scale sculpture made by a guy in Utah who makes all kinds of skulls out of precious stone. This one is obsidian from Mexico.

This shelf has become much nicer since my forays to EBAY! LOL

Love it, love it!!
 

I'm a sphere lover too. I just love rocks period. I've got a huge chunk of amythyst on my dresser, a large "fortune-teller" crystal ball upstairs. They are just scattered around. Yours are so much prettier because of the grouping you've done. Makes a person want to stand in one spot forever and just look. Thanks for sharing.

Billye

new project...
 

Here is a work in progress... it is taking a long time to do...as you can see I only have one side done so far!

This is amethyst and quartz reassembled from smaller samples.

The first is a side view.
The second is a colorized by computer side view. (experimenting)
and the third shows part of the back being worked on.

I still have a long way to go on this one!

I am now thinking I'll perhaps do a painting of the sculpture...that would give
me more latitude with the image....hmmmm.

I've had to go back to Ebay several times for materials..as one thing leads to another etc. So this is making the project very LONG....so far.

Mrsd these are so cool!

"3-- has my new crystal ball that I experimented with, and a wolf print sculpture I made on vacation several years ago, from the casts I took made by the wolf clan that lived on our other island. I'd go over there in a boat after a rain, and see if there were good tracks. If so I made casts of them, then reversed the cast with a new casting to get the negative effect"
------------------------------------------------------------------
wolfs mrsd so awesome that is one of my "to do's" before I die see and hear wolfs in the natural habitat . I collect rocks but they are just lined on my shelfs and atop my desk and comp. I went to a mine last summer in the carolinas and dug, panned for gems stones. and when I was in virginia went "creeking" and I found like 6 OR 7 perfectly heart shaped stones/rocks.. funny it was virginia Virginia is for lovers and I find hearts shaped rocks in the creek there :p. I also got some ruby and quarts and stuff. I have a huge peice of fools gold too. rocks are great to find and keep as most of the time they are like free tokens to remeber your adventure. love your work ;)
Peace
BMW

update...
 

My son came over yesterday with all his fancy photography equipment, etc.
He wanted to record my crystal projects. (he felt my pics were not good enough) He did side lighting, and other tricks.

So here they are redone:
The amethyst one is now finished BTW.

OMG they are gorgeous! And boy is your son a talented photographer! And the amethyst one is so beautiful.

Hmmmm ahrd to pick a fav cuz I like them all but I think the one on the far right.

I seriously think you should senter some art fairs. You would be a big hit!

These are very cool. I LOVE THEM! My favorite was the one with the circle stone (agate?)

Really cool and unusual pieces.

Good work!

My son just posted...
 

My son just posted a photo of the set up he used to take the most
recent pictures.

When he was here, he took them in RAW form...so I could not download them
to my computer. I don't really understand what RAW means.

So he is posting them slowly on Flickr so I can save them off there.

This one is interesting. It is here in the computer room, where I work now.
The little squares which explain things don't translate over...he had them all over this picture.

new crystal ball...
 

Here is the new sphere done:

It is citrine quartz (tumbled), clear quartz (tumbled) with clear Arkansas
quartz crystals and some citrine points (crystal)

It looks large, but it is the smallest so far..only 3 inches in diameter.

My next attempt is going to be a DARK one... more masculine for my son's
birthday. He says the "pretty" ones are not masculine enough! LOL
But he wants one anyway. So I am exploring more metallic minerals/crystals for him.
And it is turning out be a more difficult task than I predicted!

I have found that citrine is hard to find, and I have had considerable trouble acquiring it
on Ebay. (and it is typically somewhat expensive).