Experimenting with "dry tumbling" Mule Deer Antler

I spent yesterday working on the Green Jay - looking good! I'm so happy => and cutting new and interesting things out of all the scrap wood, antler, metal, and what ever else I could dig up.

I love recycling and it seems these days that it's been more than enough to keep me busy! I have so much little bits and pieces of stuff everywhere and am going to try this summer to get it all into a project of some type - this week; beads from whatever I can find.... I went into the Etsy forums last night trying to see if anyone knew how to polish/tumble antler beads, there was absolutely no response... so, I will experiment! It's more fun anyway, especially since I have so many antler "sheds"! =D

I went online and found a couple of ideas not related to antler but I will try to incorporate a few of them and see if they work.
The first one this morning will be cutting little squares of sandpaper and adding them to the mix, as well as taping(?) a circle of sandpaper on the top and bottom of the barrel. The mix consists of antler 'buttons', slices, and a couple of tips, as well as scraps of wood that I've cut into little squares (I have a feeling the wood scraps will disintegrate, but it's worth trying!), and a few letters, big and small, from previous projects. I think they will make wonderful beads and ephemera for mixed media projects... My hunch is that they will sand quickly and I need to keep checking to make sure that something remains!
I hope to finish the antler off in a traditional manner, a slurry of progressive grit, but right now there are too few of them to put by themselves... I'm not sure how to do that later on, but, like I said, "it's an experiment"! Little things like this keep me going while I work on the larger projects, and help my 'creative' mind to be satisfied briefly =>lol

Oh, last year the boys and I went Pinon nut hunting - we found a ton of them, out of the cone, laying everywhere! Being the crafter I am, I decided to pick up the cones too. When looking for 'cool stuff' yesterday I remembered the bag of pine cones in the laundry room! They had opened up and I couldn't help but smile when I saw how much like flowers they looked! Don't you think so? =>

So, it's off to "work"... thanks for "stopping by the shop!"