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!

Want to Make Soap?

We have decided we like to make soap in bars, without molds, so we are selling all of our molds in one fell swoop! These types of molds usually sell for about $5.00 each, but we are selling all of our molds for $38.00 plus shipping.

The 13 plastic molds consist of 7 two-part soap molds that come with the rubber bands to hold them closed (there are 14 rubber bands included) and 6 one-part molds. Each mold makes a 4+ ounce size bar. There are photos of all of the molds for sale at the link above.

These molds can be found in our Etsy 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.

Latest Additions to the Cache

Thanks to all of our wonderful patrons, we've had to add more fossil ivory and beads to our "Grizzly Mountain Cache" Etsy shop!

One of the fossil ivory items added, is a beautiful ingot of mammoth ivory. Dave shaped and finished this piece so it can be worn as is, or it is ready for you to try your hand at scrimshaw. Other fossil ivory lots recently added, are eleven lots of fossil shards that would be ideal for wire wrappers or carvers.

When I make my tribally inspired jewelry, I tend to use the more imperfect looking supplies as I feel that in their imperfection, they are perfect. The newly added Terra Cotta blue beads are a fine example of this. When you look through our galleries of sold items on our website, you can quickly identify what I (Jo) make, and what Dave makes, as his work is precise and polished and mine is....not so much :)

If you'd like to take a look at our newest Cache items, please click the link below.

Grizzly Mountain Cache--Primitive Supplies and Other Unusual Findings