Turkey Bone Necklace

[mieljolie]

Hey, fellow craftsters!  I was playing around with some turkey bones I saved from last Thanksgiving and came up with this:





Closeups of the skull pendant:





I'm lovin' the spine bones.  But, I'm wondering what would be a good stain to make the bone look older and less white.  Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks for looking.  I'll be posting some more experiments with these bones on my blog in the future.

[TexasThistle]

hahaha that is cool! I must do this

[Tularosa]

Love it! I use to make dolls (kinda scary ones) using turkey vertebrae for the faces. They're so oddly perfect, no?

If you're patient, the bones will actually age all on their own (if they're not sealed). But that's on a couple of years timescale!  Otherwise you could try a beige-ish acrylic paint (thin it with water because the bone is so porous, paint it on and wipe it off).

[mieljolie]

hahaha that is cool! I must do this

You should.  It's a fun project.

Love it! I use to make dolls (kinda scary ones) using turkey vertebrae for the faces. They're so oddly perfect, no?

If you're patient, the bones will actually age all on their own (if they're not sealed). But that's on a couple of years timescale!  Otherwise you could try a beige-ish acrylic paint (thin it with water because the bone is so porous, paint it on and wipe it off).

I'd love to see pics of your dolls if you have them.  Sounds really clever.  They would be perfect!

Thanks!  I'll give the paint a try.  I've got plenty of pieces to play with.  We had two turkeys last year.  But, I don't think I cleaned one as well as the other, and it is much yellower and transparent due to the grease or cooking process.  One was smoked and the other roasted.  

I'm looking in to other ways to string the long thin bones.  I wrapped them with wire.  I'm working on hair falls, next.  I'll be cutting some of the longer hollow bones to make beads.

BTW, we're having chicken tonight!  Muhahaha!!

[mynta]

Frikking AWEsome.

[diy-me-amy]

beautiful!!! cool!!

[mieljolie]

Thanks, mynta and diy-me-amy!

We had our chicken the other night.  The bones are almost identical to the turkeys, but so much smaller and more brittle.  I got a 4lb. chicken with the neck removed, so I think that is why there weren't many of the vertebrae shaped like the one on my necklace from the turkey.

The turkey bones are really fun and fascinating.  I was curious after looking through the vertebrae as to where the piece I chose was from.  I was fairly certain the one I chose was from somewhere closer to the head.  So, my thoughtful family has decided to roast another turkey to see what the order of the bones actually is.  Though we usually don't, this time we're keeping the neck in to see what those bones look like.  Mmmmmm... turkey!

[Joesuplicki]

I love using the turkey neck bone, when I was a kid almost every year me and my dad would take the neck bones and make them into neckerchief slides all through cub scouts and boy scouts, it was always fun to do, great job

[mieljolie]

I love using the turkey neck bone, when I was a kid almost every year me and my dad would take the neck bones and make them into neckerchief slides all through cub scouts and boy scouts, it was always fun to do, great job

What a bizarrely fun thing to do with the bones.    Never did anything cool like that when I was in brownies or girl scouts. 

[thefett]

Very cool. Good eye!