Filling Orders and Goldstone

I've been trying to wrap up some loose ends before heading to Alberta for a few days next week. The house clean-up has been proceeding slowly and I've been working on filling craft fair orders, preparing quotes and invoices for clients and throwing out some particularly rancid gelatin that was forgotten during the hectic craft fair weekend. The biggest block of time has gone into preparing a wholesale order for The Rooms Gift Shop. Hopefully it will be ready for delivery later today or (more likely) tomorrow. I can pull some of the order from pieces I prepared for the craft fair, but there is so much variety in the order that I need to make several pieces from scratch.

The arrowheads hafted onto shafts in the photo are going to be hafted necklaces. I drill a hole through the wood, cut the shaft off close to the arrowhead, and string them on leather cord. I'm using some particularly nice obsidian in these necklaces and 2 of them will be for sale at The Rooms Gift Shop shortly.

There will also be a few goldstone pieces in this order. Goldstone is a manufactured material that has copper flakes suspended in glass. The process was discovered in the 17th century and patented in Italy in 1670. The reason I use it is that there were several goldstone artifacts found in the excavations at Ferryland, including gold rings and pendants. The Ferryland artifacts appear to have been hidden in 1696 when the French attacked the site. I think its interesting that this material shows up in the New World within a couple decades of its being patented in Italy.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Photo Captions:
Top: Hafted Necklaces, still on the stalk
Bottom: Goldstone earrings and necklace, ready to be wired