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Post by mrbrett on May 6, 2004 16:59:40 GMT -5
This thread is to hear what ideas and neat things that you have found or came up with to do with your tumbled rocks, slabs, cabs and other things. It seems that too often we get into the same boring pattern and start to "slack off" in this hobby or profession. Your ideas might spice things up again. ;D
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Post by Noosh9057 on May 6, 2004 17:38:01 GMT -5
Well I like to fill up glass jars and vases, They look great on a coffee table. I also put some of my polished rock in my aquariums.
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bwalters
has rocks in the head
Member since March 2004
Posts: 557
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Post by bwalters on May 6, 2004 17:47:37 GMT -5
Llana and I have had LOTS of ideas of what to do with our polished stones, however, I'm just now working on my first 'project'. I cut a cross out of a 1/4" thick cedar shingle and have glued some of my flatter polished stones onto it making them fit kinda like a jigsaw puzzle. Next I plan to pour a thick epoxy resin over the whole thing. I'll let you know how it turns out!
What are you doing with your stones?
Barbara
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Post by Noosh9057 on May 6, 2004 17:50:15 GMT -5
I like the cross idea. Let us know how it comes out.
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SirRoxalot
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 790
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Post by SirRoxalot on May 6, 2004 17:59:19 GMT -5
I snagged a dozen cheap but classy German beer glasses; very tall and thin, seldom seen or used on this side of the pond. Fill them with colorful tumbled stones and voila, great gifts.
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llanago
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2004
Posts: 1,714
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Post by llanago on May 6, 2004 19:35:54 GMT -5
Since the price of gas these days prevents me from hitching up my home and traveling around, I am landscaping my little RV spot.
I love cactus and rocks, so I am going to do a cactus/rock garden using big river rock and do some this and that designs in it with my polished stones.
I also have three birdhouses I made and am going to put a few polished stones on for decoration.
Also going to make a windchime out of driftwood, chimes and some slabs.
Am going to make a "treasure box" and use stones on it.
Going to make walking sticks and embed polished stones on them.
And, am wirewrapping some.
These are all "going to do" things - when I find the time. Heck, lately I have been so busy that when I get home, I don't even log on - I just crash in the recliner. I have a 6# barrel that's been going in 46/70 for three and a half weeks I need to check, but just don't have the energy! When I checked my 3#r in 46/70 a couple of days ago, there was still a considerable amount of good grit after 3 weeks, so I figure this 6#r can go a few more days then I will have to find the energy to check it.
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bwalters
has rocks in the head
Member since March 2004
Posts: 557
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Post by bwalters on May 6, 2004 20:39:41 GMT -5
Didn't I tell you all that Llana and I have had LOTS of 'ideas' !?! ;D ;D ;D
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shorty
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2003
Posts: 392
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Post by shorty on May 6, 2004 21:03:04 GMT -5
hi all i used some of my stones to make a mail box. im working on a blueprint for a barbique pit now.. i plan on using big rocks for the base and frame then .polished stone for the little holes between the bigstuf..mite look good. shorty
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llanago
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2004
Posts: 1,714
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Post by llanago on May 6, 2004 21:32:58 GMT -5
A mailbox? That sounds neat. Got a pic you can post? I would love to see it.
My neighbors here at the park got a little decorative mail box from some friends of theirs and I thought about making some like it - but that's all I did - think about it! ;D
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shorty
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2003
Posts: 392
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Post by shorty on May 6, 2004 21:51:53 GMT -5
hi llango no i dont have a camera. i wish i did. i just got a mail box and some morter and stuck some morter on the box then put some stones on let that dry. mix the morter a little dryer than it is supose tobe after it dried about a day do some more .till it is done its easy oh you mite have to drill some holes tit the box to stick some wire out so the motor to form around to hold the stuf on the box.. thatis all i hope you can understand what i mean im not very good explaining stouf
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WarrenA
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since November 2003
Posts: 1,530
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Post by WarrenA on May 6, 2004 23:37:47 GMT -5
I have been thinking about tring to make a checker board with polished rock as the squares or making a lamp shade with slices somewhat like a tiffany but with stones, it may take awhile for these projects
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bwalters
has rocks in the head
Member since March 2004
Posts: 557
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Post by bwalters on May 6, 2004 23:55:50 GMT -5
Two dear friends of mine have a tiffany type lamp shade that was made from extremely thin polished slabs. It's absolutely beautiful! A friend of their's made it, but he is in his 90's now, so doubtful that he will be making more of them.
Go for it, Warren! It CAN be done. Will you show us pics when you're done?
Barbara
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Post by puppie96 on May 7, 2004 2:16:42 GMT -5
It's a dilemma. I've got a real job in a real profession. However, about 15 years ago I got interested in another creative endeavor and now I know the pattern.... You get interested in something like rock tumbling or whatever, you go nuts buying equipment and supplies, the next thing you know you are overrun with finished product that looks pretty gosh darn good, you have all you need, or should I say, you are running out of space, and you have saturated your friends and family with gift items, and then what? You are almost forced to sell some of it to subsidize your addiction.... That's what happened to me 15 years ago, and while then, I was very excited to start up my new small business which turned out to be lucrative, but as time went on and the need for the extra money became less, the business became more of a burden than a pleasure. Now I am loaded with inventory and wanting to get out and what do I do. AAArgh. After that experience, I don't want to get into the same situation and go into the rock business and I'm not sure I want to invest the time, effort and money that would be involved in learning and doing wrapping etc., which clearly would have to turn into a business or else what? I realize I'm coming to some sort of crossroads and I am trying to ignore that as my dining room table fills up with trays of truly beautiful rocks and my friends and family are beginning to have the novelty wear off. So. I don't know. Maybe the thing to do is to try to find a way to wholesale finished rocks. At this point I want a break from the shows. Sorry about the rambling post, but this is a topic I really would like to hear more about from other people.
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Post by mrbrett on May 7, 2004 7:08:57 GMT -5
Well so far I have made several pendants and rings. I did take a nite light and took off the cover and glued it to a poliahed brazilian agate slab and made a cool nite light. Thanks for all the imput! My brother just moved into a new house and I want to give him a house warming gift. These ideas will help.
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MichiganRocks
starting to spend too much on rocks
"I wasn't born to follow."
Member since April 2007
Posts: 154
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Post by MichiganRocks on May 7, 2004 8:37:12 GMT -5
I've drilled some rocks and made some pendants. I've also drilled some rocks to make beads, but I haven't done anything with the beads! I've tried wirewrapping, but I just can't seem to make my hands do the right things. I am cutting up some obsidian right now to make into beads that I plan to use to make a rosary. Lots of plans, but what I really have is a bunch of bowls of shiny rocks sitting all over the place!
Ron
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WilliamC
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2003
Posts: 416
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Post by WilliamC on May 7, 2004 9:28:40 GMT -5
Greetings All,
This is to you puppie96, sounds exactly like some of the considerations I'm having, but I haven't quite yet made enough of an investment to bring my hobby to the next level precisely because of my full-time job which I enjoy and which makes me comfortable enough not to need to start and run my own business. It sounds like you simply got to the point where you needed to involve more people to make your previous business grow into something larger than you could personally manage. That requires an entirely different set of skills, entrepenurial skills, which again take time to learn. So it sounds like you got to the stage where you had to weigh your established career and lifestyle against the risks inherent in becoming a self-employeed small-businessman. That's ultimately a decision only you can make.
For me, I'm really hoping to involve my son, he's five now, and trying to use this hobby as a way for him to learn how to make money from it. He's already able to sort rocks between stages, and if I can keep enough rocks tumbling I am going to start paying him a little to sort them for me. He's almost ready to load the barrels on his own, and within a couple three years he should be able to take rough rocks all the way through to polish, and I can sit back and pay him for the polished rocks he makes. Of course if he gets so good at it that we then have more inventory that we know what to do with, then he can start selling it himself, to reinvest in the business. That's sort of the plan at least, since like I mentioned I'm full-time employed and really like my job, so there's essentially zero chance of me quitting to start a business and learn those kinds of skills, but maybe I can teach my boy about them before he's old enough to better ;D
WilliamC
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Post by creativeminded on May 7, 2004 10:15:09 GMT -5
The larger stones I will be turning into wire wrapped pendants, and the smaller ones I will be using in a mosaic, and some of them that look like river stone I will be gluing to a picture that my sister painted with her toe, to make it look like a river bed, or stream. Haven't decided what to do with the ones that are too big and too heavy to wrap for pendants, I might wrap them anyway to hang as decorations for the home. One of my larger white quartz I wire wrapped and will be attaching to one of my sisters pictures. Tami
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Post by puppie96 on May 9, 2004 3:45:06 GMT -5
Hi William, and thank you for your input. You are very right about involving other people, since that is the next dilemma with a crafty type business -- once you start selling your stuff and it's making money, your success forces another round of decisions, the main one being whether it's time to hire employee(s) and go full tilt into production. In addition to having a profession that I'm happy with and not being under financial pressure, I also have always had the feeling that the hands-on aspect of the things I made was a major part of the appeal, and that something would be lost should I try to turn it out on a production line. I know my product, I made every bit of it with my own hands, I work my own booth, and my customers quickly became regulars who sought me out. I love your involvement of the kid -- it's perfect. I was a kid entrepeneur (sp??) and was making/selling stuff at every opportunity on my own; it would have been great to have a parent encouraging this and offering the opportunities that you are. If I had, my life would probably be much different, since I seem to have a bit of a talent for selling my stuff.
As an aside, I was in SD in the Black Hills area and happened to go into a coffee shop in a restored bank building and somehow ended up chatting up the owner, who is a really nice guy. There were really nice hand crafted items on his tables, I asked about buying them and it turned out that he and his wife had made them. He told me that they were victims of their own success. Somebody gave him a huge order. They drove themselves crazy filling the order and after that, decided against pursuing it as a business and simply quit. Seems that the first question you need to answer for yourself is whether this is going to be a hobby or a business, and next, whether it is going to be a sideline or a real business. I never got past the second stage.
You certainly hit the nail on the head about the difficulties inherent in all this. I learned a great deal from the experience of having the sideline business and I have never been frightened by the idea of turning it into a real business, since right or wrong, I was confident that I could make it succeed if I chose to do so. But like you, I had no good reason at all to blow off the employment that I have, and that decision was clearly the right one.
I appreciate your comments about this, as I did the comments by the SD guy, since there seem to be very few people who have gone down this road that I can discuss the problem with.
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llanago
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2004
Posts: 1,714
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Post by llanago on May 9, 2004 9:50:34 GMT -5
Well I like to fill up glass jars and vases That's what I am doing with mine until I get around to doing something else with them! Had a disaster yesterday - one of my rock filled vases took a tumble and what a mess! Needless to say, the vase was a goner and some of my rocks also broke. None of the broken ones were my favorites, so I wasn't heartbroken over losing them. Had it been some of my favorite ones, I would have been really upset! Thanks Shorty for the instructions on the mailbox. You basically did a mosiac on it, huh? Barbara and I have talked about using our rocks for some mosiac stuff, but never thought about a mailbox. Did you put rocks all over it, or just do a design? Also, how heavy it is with the rocks on it? We may steal your idea, ya' know! ;D Warren, you have stolen my idea! ;D I told Barbara a month or so ago that I thought a checkerboard out of rocks would be really neat. I was thinking of using some unusual wood for the board and cubed shaped rocks for the checkers. Would be kinda weird with cube shaped checkers, but I am too much of a beginner to be able to figure out how to make round checkers! Ron, it is really hard for me to wire wrap also. My hands just have a hard time working with that small wire. The first ones I wire wrapped I didn't have much problem with but the ones I have attempted since then have been a disaster. I have yet to try and drill a hole in one. Gonna have to go back and read your advice on drilling before I try it. Lots of plans, but what I really have is a bunch of bowls of shiny rocks sitting all over the place!Yep, that's me too!
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SirRoxalot
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 790
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Post by SirRoxalot on May 9, 2004 14:34:45 GMT -5
Speaking from experience, I can tell you that the very best part of owning a small business is that you get to choose which twenty hours of the day you want to work.
I wish I was kidding. None of the "Quit Your Day Job" manuals ever mentions the workload required to succeed. Think hard about it. Working a forty hour week is what most small business owners call having a nice quiet vacation...
It ain't all bad tho; not having a boss, a timecard, or mentally-challenged fellow employees to deal with is pretty da-mn cool.
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