Famous Jewelry Collections: THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

Friday, July 15, 2011

THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

Posted: 15 Jul 2011 04:23 AM PDT

Images by Kate Benjamin

You may have come across products made from pet dog hair before but feline fur jewelry? Why not? A couple of highly creative artisans have been making good use of what would have been dust bunnies.

I first came across cat fur jewelry on Kate Benjamin's delightful blog called Modern Cat.

I never knew until I read her blog post that there is such an occasion as National Hairball Awareness day! Instead of yucky hairballs coughed up by felines, she groomed her cats in order to hand roll tight fur ball beads.

Her friend and jewelry artisan, Heidi Abrahamson, then created the jewelry for this dedicated cat lover! She will also do custom work for anyone else who would rather wear their favorite pet's fur rather than sweep up the cat hair dust bunnies!

Images by Kate Benjamin

Flora Davis arrived at her inspirational designs via her 3-year old male flame point purebred Ragamuffin cat. Gaia has long white fur tinged with orange. He is a serious shedder so Flora has to groom him a lot. She initially made soft round fur balls as cat toys. Shown below is Gaia with his fur ball toys and modelling his ~~slave's~~ owner's necklace. It has garnered many compliments!

The white fur balls resembled beautiful pearls so much that before long, Flora added cat hair jewelry to her Etsy store! Her clever way with wire really showcase the felted fur balls well as shown by her designs below. It takes her months of grooming to get enough hair for a necklace.

Flora told me NPR radio did a feature on her work earlier this month which included this delightful limerick :

"My customers let out a fat purr.
Your lady will know where it's at, sir.
I think feline remnants
Do make lovely pendants
It's jewelry made out of...cat fur "

Thanks Catsparella for the wonderful interview post on Flora's work!

For more tutorials check out my Jewelry Making Tips

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