Rat Doll

I've started making dolls with animal parts. Here is "Loleta":

Parakeet Project Part 2

The owner of the parakeets wanted tail feather hair fascinators to remember her birds by, but she wanted to bury the rest of the remains. I made her custom coffins for the tiny birds and wrapped the remains in lace.


The fascinators next to the open coffins:










We had a funeral for the Parakeets and buried them in a friend's personal pet cemetery, full of fish, birds, and Pugs.
Here is Chloey, the parakeet owner, at the graves, along with some other photos of the graves.

Blue Lake Outing

Here are some photos I took recently on a roadkill-salvage outing in Blue Lake, California. The side of the winding 299 was riddled with deer carcasses. Antlers were missing and some bodies were found in game bags, indicating these were hunted, not hit by cars, and the bodies dumped.

Parakeet Hair Fascninators

I recently worked on two parakeets that were the pets of a friend of mine. They died when smoke from a neighbors barbeque suffocated them. She wanted something to remember them by so I decided to make her some hair fascinators from the tails.



for small projects I generally work on my dining room table, which also functions as my operating table. Notice my awesome room mate unphased by the project, enjoying his burrito in the background.



At this point I think my room mate finally left the room:

After treating the tails and drying them for a few days I completed the hair fascinators.

Current Project--Parakeet Tail Hair Fascinators

A friend of mine had two pet parakeets that tragically died recently, I'm making hair fascinators from the tails so she has something to remember them by. More photos to come.

Germany was an amazing experience and I've come back completely inspired. It was taxidermy heaven over there and I got some great photos. I even brought back a genuine Swiss taxidermy squirrel missing both his eyes. I call him Griswald Grindelwald, after the town of Griswald he came from.
I also attended Burning Man this year. Here's a photo of me ringing the virgin bell at the gates.


I've been working on some small items recently that will soon be up for sale in my Etsy shop. So far I've completed a pair of rat-paw earrings and a hair fascinator made of a parakeet wing.

Summer Updates

Hello All,
I'm getting ready to head to Germany for a month so my Etsy Shop is in vacation mode. I should be back the first week of August.
I will be working on preserving baby octopi when I get back and will be selling them on Etsy and at Eureka's monthly Arts Alive.

I'm also working on some taxidermy jewelry pieces using rodent parts.
Hope you are all having a wonderful summer!

~{Simone Smith}~