My friends daughter lost her first tooth, so I set it into a ring for him :)

[Ebo Von Gaz]

Quite happy with the way it turned out, it's a thumb ring so the rims help protect the setting as it will be on the outside of the hand...

[medusa]

fabulous! I'm looking to cage some of my kids milk teeth in fancy chain links.

[Ebo Von Gaz]

ooh nice! (and thanks)

[Lucie]

What a lovely idea I've made moulds of a couple & cast them in silver - never really did anything else with them though

[metalsmith]

I'm sure this is wonderful, but after a couple of bad experiences at the dentists recently, some of that (unreasonable) English squeamishness is starting to creep into me when it comes to teeth. Really, as you rightly depict, we should see them as gems, just like any other bio-calcifications. The piece looks lovely and I'm sure I'll one day get over myself! I never used to be like this.

[Ebo Von Gaz]

No it's fine Metalsmith, most people have a strong reaction to this sort of thing, I rarely get a neutral reaction, a lot of people can't get over the totally natural idea of teeth as bio waste, though in reality it's no weirder than pearls or ivory or shell or mother of pearl, and certainly no weirder than the thousands of little daily hypocrisies that we otherwise caring and intelligent beings take part in on a daily basis.

I find the emotional connotations are very personal, I dislike using teeth from anonymous sources and only feel comfortable working with them when I've had some interaction with the owner. As opposed to the leather in the shoes on our feet or the meat and eggs and milk on our plates, who's source never had a say in it's production. In this case I was present as the child's mother went into labour and was the first person to meet her when she came home from hospital.

It feels more like providing a very personal service to the people involved than simply glamming up cast off bits of people.

[EmmaC]

I think it's quite cool, if you hadn't said it was a tooth from that picture I wouldn't know. I'm currently having lots of dental treatment and may lose one of my back molars, maybe if I do I should make something wearable from it!

[Ebo Von Gaz]

Thanks Emma depends what nick it's in when it comes out, I've had some success filling cavities with easy solder and then polishing flush though. Helps if there's an undercut.

Oh and thanks Lucie, I've not tried casting them, but I tend to do this sort of work case-by-case for people who ask for it.

[ShinyLauren]

Really cool design. I'll admit to being one of those who is (yes, irrationally) a bit grossed out by teeth, but I really like what you've done with it.

[Ebo Von Gaz]

I don't think it's that irrational, it's a strong evolutionary trait to be phobic of waste products which has probably stood you and every Shinylauren ancestor in good stead back to the stone age. How much of it is cultural and how much is biological is probably up for debate, and that comes before any rationalisation about what it actually is.