I had planned to pin some bugs this week but I’ve been really sick and still don’t seem to be getting any better. I also don’t have the energy to work on my cow scull so I decided that I would use this week to get some inspiration for some new projects.

I saw this tiktok and immediately knew that I wanted to create one of these. I will be making a letterpress tray shelf filled with oddities and curiosities. First, as soon as im better ill be heading to the antique shoips and thrift stores to find a shelf or letterpress tray similar to the one in the video. I’m worried it will be hard to find one with a variety of sized cubbies that are small enough for tiny specimens.

When people visit my house for the first time I often have to warn them about the multiple unusual creatures and specimens I own. The longer you look, the stranger things get. My sanity is often questioned once they notice the pickled hamster in a jar on my bookshelf. I have quite the collection of tiny oddities scattered randomly around my house because i never know where to put them. An odditties and curiosities tray that I can hang on my wall would be so much better than having them placed randomly around my house. I also think it will be fun to fill up the little tray spaces with tiny side projects I complete throught my free inquiry project.

by: erin swan

Above are a few tiny specimens I already own that I would add to my oddities and curiosities tray… From Left to Right:

  1. One of my pet Black Widows egg sacks that hatched inside the glass vial.1
  2. Dragon Fly Wet Specimen
  3. One of the Molts from my baby Asian Forest Scorpion (his name is Nero)
  4. My pet jumping spider that I preserved once she died of old age (her name is Dimitri)
  5. The Fangs from my Orange Baboon Tarantulas Molt when he was a baby (his name is nibbles because Orange Baboon tarantulas (OBT’s) are also known as Orange Bitey Things in the tarantula hobby)
  6. The “helmet” from one of Dimitri’s molts.
  7. Domestic Cat Jaw
  8. Rabbit Foot
  9. Snake shed from my Ball Python (her name is Lilith)

*Every specimen I own and will own are ethically scourced*

  1. ↩︎