Jump to content

Search the Community

Showing results for tags 'fun'.

  • Search By Tags

    Type tags separated by commas.
    Tags should be keywords or key phrases. e.g. otodus, megalodon, shark tooth, miocene, bone valley formation, usa, florida.
  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • Fossil Discussion
    • Fossil ID
    • Fossil Hunting Trips
    • General Fossil Discussion
    • Partners in Paleontology - Member Contributions to Science
    • Fossil of the Month
    • Questions & Answers
    • Member Collections
    • A Trip to the Museum
    • Paleo Re-creations
    • Collecting Gear
    • Fossil Preparation
    • Is It Real? How to Recognize Fossil Fabrications
    • Member-to-Member Fossil Trades
    • Fossil News
  • Community News
    • Member Introductions
    • Member of the Month
    • Members' News & Diversions
  • General Category
    • Rocks & Minerals
    • Geology

Categories

  • Annelids
  • Arthropods
    • Crustaceans
    • Insects
    • Trilobites
    • Other Arthropods
  • Brachiopods
  • Cnidarians (Corals, Jellyfish, Conulariids )
    • Corals
    • Jellyfish, Conulariids, etc.
  • Echinoderms
    • Crinoids & Blastoids
    • Echinoids
    • Other Echinoderms
    • Starfish and Brittlestars
  • Forams
  • Graptolites
  • Molluscs
    • Bivalves
    • Cephalopods (Ammonites, Belemnites, Nautiloids)
    • Gastropods
    • Other Molluscs
  • Sponges
  • Bryozoans
  • Other Invertebrates
  • Ichnofossils
  • Plants
  • Chordata
    • Amphibians & Reptiles
    • Birds
    • Dinosaurs
    • Fishes
    • Mammals
    • Sharks & Rays
    • Other Chordates
  • *Pseudofossils ( Inorganic objects , markings, or impressions that resemble fossils.)

Blogs

  • Anson's Blog
  • Mudding Around
  • Nicholas' Blog
  • dinosaur50's Blog
  • Traviscounty's Blog
  • Seldom's Blog
  • tracer's tidbits
  • Sacredsin's Blog
  • fossilfacetheprospector's Blog
  • jax world
  • echinoman's Blog
  • Ammonoidea
  • Traviscounty's Blog
  • brsr0131's Blog
  • brsr0131's Blog
  • Adventures with a Paddle
  • Caveat emptor
  • -------
  • Fig Rocks' Blog
  • placoderms
  • mosasaurs
  • ozzyrules244's Blog
  • Terry Dactyll's Blog
  • Sir Knightia's Blog
  • MaHa's Blog
  • shakinchevy2008's Blog
  • Stratio's Blog
  • ROOKMANDON's Blog
  • Phoenixflood's Blog
  • Brett Breakin' Rocks' Blog
  • Seattleguy's Blog
  • jkfoam's Blog
  • Erwan's Blog
  • Erwan's Blog
  • marksfossils' Blog
  • ibanda89's Blog
  • Liberty's Blog
  • Liberty's Blog
  • Lindsey's Blog
  • Back of Beyond
  • Ameenah's Blog
  • St. Johns River Shark Teeth/Florida
  • gordon's Blog
  • West4me's Blog
  • West4me's Blog
  • Pennsylvania Perspectives
  • michigantim's Blog
  • michigantim's Blog
  • lauraharp's Blog
  • lauraharp's Blog
  • micropterus101's Blog
  • micropterus101's Blog
  • GPeach129's Blog
  • Olenellus' Blog
  • nicciann's Blog
  • nicciann's Blog
  • Deep-Thinker's Blog
  • Deep-Thinker's Blog
  • bear-dog's Blog
  • javidal's Blog
  • Digging America
  • John Sun's Blog
  • John Sun's Blog
  • Ravsiden's Blog
  • Jurassic park
  • The Hunt for Fossils
  • The Fury's Grand Blog
  • julie's ??
  • Hunt'n 'odonts!
  • falcondob's Blog
  • Monkeyfuss' Blog
  • cyndy's Blog
  • pattyf's Blog
  • pattyf's Blog
  • chrisf's Blog
  • chrisf's Blog
  • nola's Blog
  • mercyrcfans88's Blog
  • Emily's PRI Adventure
  • trilobite guy's Blog
  • barnes' Blog
  • xenacanthus' Blog
  • myfossiltrips.blogspot.com
  • HeritageFossils' Blog
  • Fossilefinder's Blog
  • Fossilefinder's Blog
  • maybe a nest fossil?
  • farfarawy's Blog
  • Microfossil Mania!
  • blogs_blog_99
  • Southern Comfort
  • Emily's MotE Adventure
  • Eli's Blog
  • andreas' Blog
  • Recent Collecting Trips
  • retired blog
  • andreas' Blog test
  • fossilman7's Blog
  • Piranha Blog
  • xonenine's blog
  • xonenine's Blog
  • Fossil collecting and SAFETY
  • Detrius
  • pangeaman's Blog
  • pangeaman's Blog
  • pangeaman's Blog
  • Jocky's Blog
  • Jocky's Blog
  • Kehbe's Kwips
  • RomanK's Blog
  • Prehistoric Planet Trilogy
  • mikeymig's Blog
  • Western NY Explorer's Blog
  • Regg Cato's Blog
  • VisionXray23's Blog
  • Carcharodontosaurus' Blog
  • What is the largest dragonfly fossil? What are the top contenders?
  • Test Blog
  • jsnrice's blog
  • Lise MacFadden's Poetry Blog
  • BluffCountryFossils Adventure Blog
  • meadow's Blog
  • Makeing The Unlikley Happen
  • KansasFossilHunter's Blog
  • DarrenElliot's Blog
  • Hihimanu Hale
  • jesus' Blog
  • A Mesozoic Mosaic
  • Dinosaur comic
  • Zookeeperfossils
  • Cameronballislife31's Blog
  • My Blog
  • TomKoss' Blog
  • A guide to calcanea and astragali
  • Group Blog Test
  • Paleo Rantings of a Blockhead
  • Dead Dino is Art
  • The Amber Blog
  • Stocksdale's Blog
  • PaleoWilliam's Blog
  • TyrannosaurusRex's Facts
  • The Community Post
  • The Paleo-Tourist
  • Lyndon D Agate Johnson's Blog
  • BRobinson7's Blog
  • Eastern NC Trip Reports
  • Toofuntahh's Blog
  • Pterodactyl's Blog
  • A Beginner's Foray into Fossiling
  • Micropaleontology blog
  • Pondering on Dinosaurs
  • Fossil Preparation Blog
  • On Dinosaurs and Media
  • cheney416's fossil story
  • jpc
  • A Novice Geologist
  • Red-Headed Red-Neck Rock-Hound w/ My Trusty HellHound Cerberus
  • Red Headed
  • Paleo-Profiles
  • Walt's Blog
  • Between A Rock And A Hard Place
  • Rudist digging at "Point 25", St. Bartholomä, Styria, Austria (Campanian, Gosau-group)
  • Prognathodon saturator 101
  • Books I have enjoyed
  • Ladonia Texas Fossil Park
  • Trip Reports
  • Glendive Montana dinosaur bone Hell’s Creek
  • Test
  • Stratigraphic Succession of Chesapecten

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start

    End


Last Updated

  • Start

    End


Filter by number of...

Found 21 results

  1. So I haven't posted for awhile. It is not due to me not going out. But less of a needful thing to post I guess. Anyhow. I figured I would toss some photos in here as I sit and wait, hahaha! Many of these are purchases of some very cool fossils! I hope you enjoy!
  2. Well, I hope it will be spectacular. Thank you to Santa's Helpers and everyone who participated last year to make it such a success. I think Doren would have been very pleased. Never forgotten. Thanks, once again to my wonderful helpers and advisors from last year, @Darktoothr @Bobby Rico @fifbrindacier and @sixgill pete. Honestly, your assistance was worth more than you know. Invaluable. I hope I can rely on you once again when I start to panic. If you, or anyone else, has any suggestions or advice Welcome to the Secret Santa Exchange 2021, a Festival of Fossils. The Secret Santa Exchange is when you enter your name into a pool and get matched with another player to send a gift, while another Santa sends you a fossil surprise! We try to keep the gifts to close to a $35 value, so no one is sending too extravagant a gift or receiving too menial a one. When making your selection on what to send, ask yourself; "Would I be happy receiving this?" ALL ARE WELCOME TO PLAY AS LONG AS ADHERE TO THE FOLLOWING RULES : This is a Secret Santa Exchange. The point is that your recipient won't know who is sending the gift or what it will be until it is received. Your name will in turn be chosen for a different Santa to send you a gift. It goes without saying that the real Santa will be watching and it is crucial that the identity of whom the gift is coming from be kept totally unknown, so that the real Santa gets all the thanks. So no hints or contacting who you are sending to! If you have any doubts, contact me. Signing up for this fun annual event will begin immediately and entries will be accepted until the cut off for entry on Wednesday 27th of October at midnight your time. You will then be matched with with your exchange partner and the names and addresses will be sent out by the witching hour on Halloween. Please PM me, @Tidgy's Dad with your full name and postal address. There are three choices you can make for your exchange recipient. 1. US domestic only. 2. European only. (includes Morocco and Wales.) 3. International. (includes SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Jupiter, etc.) Deadline for post may be variable due to the current world situation, postage costs may also be higher. Some countries may ship by sea only which will take a lot longer. Here the camels are pretty fast at the moment. International post can be cripplingly expensive, so please check before agreeing to send a fossil tree stump to Taiwan. Please ship your parcels as soon as possible as the situation in your state/country or that of your Secret Santa partner could change at any moment. Last year, the international cut off date for sending from the USA was the second week in November, but I'm not sure about this year. Post as soon as you can. Internal US or within Europe will be quicker, but please check and bear in mind that some of the postal services are not making any promises. Please post as early as possible, if someone has a parcel under their tree for two months and has itchy fingers, it's much better than them not getting their parcel until March. It is important that everyone posts their parcels well before any deadlines, especially in these years of pandemic. Everything is still in flux, so better safe than sorry. Please do yourself and your partner the courtesy of posting in plenty of time. You may open your parcels whenever you wish, I know some folk can't wait til Christmas because of impatience or because they have plans for the holidays that would make this inconvenient, so you don't have to wait to open it on Christmas Day if you don't want. Boxing Day is fine too. One of the rules of the exchange is that you MUST photograph your fossils and share them on this thread, preferably before Christmas or on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, so PLEASE photograph your fossils as soon as they are out of the box and before they are distributed around the house, put in your collections or the kids have run off with them. Last year, some fossils vanished before photos had been taken and so the sender never had their lovely gift shared online. It's all about sharing, folks. And there's a game to be played guessing who sent which parcel of fossils with points to be won! So, don't mention your Santa by name until it has been worked out by others. A few handy tips that we have learned from past exchanges that may help the shipping transactions run more smoothly and prevent any unnecessary hold-ups : 1. Make sure your items are cleared of dust and dirt as best as you can. Most foreign customs services frown upon having a load of foreign dirt entering their country. 2. Check the box on your customs form as "Gift." This gives a better indication that the contents are not being brought in for commercial resale. 3. In the past, when writing the description on the customs' declaration, it has been found that something very simple like "Geological Specimens for Educational Purposes." or "Study Grade Fossils for Educational Purposes - No Commercial Value." works well. You don't want your gift to incur taxes if the tax office thinks they're going to be sold on. 4. For the contents value box on the form, make sure you have a low valuation, say $10, no matter how high the value of the actual contents may be. ($35, ahem!) Many customs departments will charge the recipient an additional charge based on the supposed value of the package's contents as declared on the form when entering the country. As it's a gift, we don't want any of our friends to have to pay to get it released from customs! 5. DO NOT PUT ZERO (0$) on the valuation section either. This automatically raises a red flag to customs. Nobody sends a parcel through expensive postal services that is worth nothing at all. 6. Please, please, please package your items with lots of packaging material. The parcel may seem well packaged when sitting upright on your coffee table, but they get tossed around, jumbled, beaten with baseball bats, have heavier parcels placed on top, get turned upside down etc. You can never have too much padding, especially when you parcel is travelling halfway around the world. There is nothing sadder and more frustrating to anxiously await a package and then to find that the sender did not take the time to ensure everything was packed tightly and your gift is broken. If you can feel the slightest movement in your box, assume it will break. Pad every item individually and the spaces that surround them. HAVE FUN ! ! ! ! But, okay it must be said. This exchange is built on trust. All participants are putting their decent items that they have either found, purchased or been gifted on the line in the hope that the other players have done the same. We cannot control what members do, so please play fair. Do not send a box of trash rocks. We all want items that we would be glad to have in our collections and your gift should reflect that. Remember that this is for the 25th December Holiday! A major part of this exchange, indeed , a compulsory part is to post pictures of the gifts that you receive. Please photograph what you get when you receive it, before the specimens disappear into you collections. Share with us. We want to see what Santa sent you. That's half the fun! If you don't feel the rules and deadlines are suitable for you, then please refrain from signing up for this event. We have had shed loads of fun with these events in the past and hope to keep it that way. LET THE FOLLIES BEGIN ! ! !
  3. great (18) Facebook hope you can see it, great. Group of small Brontosaurs, funny
  4. I can't believe it--I stumbled on the most precious tooth I've ever encountered--and I discovered it on our very own Livingroom floor! (The first lost baby tooth from my eldest. Have a great weekend!)
  5. Hey all. I just wanted to pick everyone’s brain and see everyone’s opinion on what trilobite they believe is necessary for a collection. I think it is safe to say all collections both beginner and advanced should have at least one Utah Elrathia kingii. While super common and pretty inexpensive in terms of trilobites they are one of the classic images when someone thinks trilobite and so for that reason I believe they are a perfect specimen for any collection.
  6. FranzBernhard

    Pet Rock

    Some of you may know this: "The care and training of your PET ROCK" Pet Rock (link to mindat) Franz Bernhard
  7. This might be some fun: Back in September I decide to quit shaving and for the first time ever see how long of a beard I can grow. In the past I kept it trimmed short if I even bothered to let it grow beyond a week or so. So let's see those furry faces! Day 103.
  8. Okay gang....let's have some fun....a contest of sorts... As an experiment, I'm going to have you folks here at the TFF choose the location my fossil hunting/camping excursion for May 2021... There are a few minimum requirements, however: Will take place over the Last Weekend in May, 2021 so I have up to 5 days available. Keep in mind, I allow a day to get there and a day to get back) Location must be no more than a ten hour drive from Omaha, Nebraska. (You can use Google maps or the like to figure drive time from Omaha) Primitive/Disbursed/Car camping must be available in the vicinity (Prefer no franchise campgrounds or RV parks, and I do not do hotels) Must be accessible to the public AND fossil hunting must be legal. (Though access fees if needed are OK) Please, no urban sites...the whole point is to get away from the city! Prefer to avoid Bear Country, but other critters are not an issue. Folks are welcome to join me, but prefer not to have the added hassle of kids and pets! "Contest" ends Saturday, May 8th at midnight, Central US Time Zone Trip may be delayed on short notice due to extreme weather or pandemic restrictions. I'll post up a way for folks to vote from all of the viable submissions on May 9th...and then I'll find out what sort of trouble you folks got me into! Winner gets a bunch of specimens from the site shipped to them- have to do your own prep work though! OK! Go go go go go! Where do you want to see me brave the elements and bust open some rocks for dead stuff?
  9. We've been having a warm spell here in southern Germany for almost a week now, which gave me the chance to check out my favorite spot in the ditch in the Danube Valley where the Kimmeridgian ammonites can be found. I had done a drive-by about ten days ago to check it out, but although the snow was almost gone at the Lake of Constance where I live, it was still piled up to half a meter in the valley. But like I already mentioned, the temps have been well up over freezing for a good week now, so I figured I'd have another go. Knowing that the spot I wanted to work at was in a hollow, I took along a large measuring cup in order to bail out and was prepared to make dams and sluices. So I was looking forward to a mud bath and that's just what it turned out to be. It was worth it in the end as you shall see and besides, anything is better than being cooped up at home because of you-know-what. I took these shots when I arrived, so you can see what I had to cope with. The layer I want to get at is under a foot of water at this point. Here's my trusty measuring cup after the bail-out and a bit of shoveling and hacking. So now I could get to work at the layer. And here come the first ammonites. These ones are small and hard to see because of the mud. Continued...
  10. , My good friend Doren has done this for the last couple of years, so please excuse me and my other friends; Sophie @fifbrindacier who will be helping with the European side of things, Dave @Darktooth helping on the USA side and Pete @sixgill pete for his experience in this field. And @Bobby Rico for his help too. (see below). Anyway: Mostly quoting Doren from last year: Welcome to this years' Secret Santa Exchange. 2020 a FESTIVAL OF FOSSILS. The Secret Santa exchange is when you enter your name into a pool and get matched with another player to exchange gifts. We try to keep gifts to about the maximum $30 range so no one is sending an overly extravagant gift or a too menial one. When making your selection on what to send, ask yourself ; "Would i be happy receiving this? " All are welcome to play as long as you adhere to the rules. This is a Secret Santa exchange. The point is that your partner will not know who is sending the gift or what it will be until it is received. Your name will in turn be chosen for a different Santa to send a gift to you. Obviously, there is a real Santa, but I can't guarantee that he or she will be involved. It is crucial that the identity of who it is coming from be kept totally unknown, so no hints or contacting who you are sending to! Signing up for entering this fun event will begin today, October 2nd, and will be open until the cut off for entry on Tuesday October 27th at midnight, your time. You will then be matched with your exchange partner and the names and addresses will be sent out by midnight October 31st. Please PM me @Tidgy's Dad with your full name and postal address. There are three choices you can make for your exchange partner; 1. US domestic only. 2. European only. (includes Morocco, okay?) 3. International. (includes the ISS or any bases on the Moon, Mars, etc.) Deadlines for post will be most variable because of the world situation, postage costs are also often higher, some countries may ship by sea only which will take a lot longer, etc. International post could be cripplingly expensive so please check before agreeing to send two kilos to Europe which might cost you $75 or more. We still want to do this fun thing this year, but the world has changed. And not just because Doren isn't in it. Please post your parcels as soon as possible as the situation is changing everyday. The USA cut off date is the second week in November, but i know from my own experience that things are taking two weeks to two months longer than usual. USA internal post is better but i can't find a sensible date from them. Wisely it seems they're not promising anything. Please post as early as possible, if someone has a parcel on their doorstep for two months and has itchy fingers, it's much better than someone getting nothing until March. IT is important that everyone posts their packages well before any deadlines, especially this year. Everything is in flux, so better safe than sorry. Please do yourself and your partner the courtesy of posting in plenty of time. Doren and I argued about whether to post pictures when the gifts arrived or only on Christmas Day or after. I say whenever you wish, but one of the rules is that photos of the gifts you have received must be posted on this thread. It's all about sharing, folks. A few handy tips we have learned from past exchanges that may help the shipping transactions run more smoothly and avoid unnecessary holdups. 1. Make sure your items are cleared of dirt and dust as best as you can. Most foreign customs departments frown upon having alien dirt entering their country. 2. Check the box on your customs form as "Gift". This portrays a better indication that the contents are not being brought in for commercial resale. 3. In the past, when writing the description on the customs declaration, it has been found that something very simple like "Geological specimens for educational purposes" or "Study grade fossils for educational purposes - No commercial value." You don't want your gift to incure taxes if the tax office thinks they are going to be sold on. 4. For the contents value box on the form, make sure you give it a low valuation (Doren always wrote $10), no matter how high the actual value of the contents maybe. ($30 ahem ) Many customs department will charge the recipient an additional charge based on the supposed value of the packages' contents as declared on the form when entering the country. As it's a gift, we don't want our people to have to pay to get it released from customs! 5. Do Not put zero ($0) on the valuation section, either. This automatically raises a red flag to customs. Nobody sends a parcel though expensive postal services(especially in a plague) that is worth nothing.! 6. Please, please, please, package your items with lots of packaging material. The parcel may seem well packaged when sitting upright on your coffee table, but they get tossed around, jumbled, beaten with baseball bats, have heavier parcels placed on top, get turned upside down etc. You can never have too much padding, especially when you parcel is travelling halfway around the world. There is nothing sadder and more frustrating to anxiously await a package and then to find that the sender did not take the time to ensure everything was packed tightly and your gift is broken. If you can feel the slightest movement in your box, assume it will break. Pad every item individually and the spaces that surround them. HAVE FUN ! ! ! ! But, okay it must be said. This exchange is built on trust. All participants are putting their decent items that they have either found, purchased or been gifted on the line in the hope that the other players have done the same. We cannot control what members do, so please play fair. Do not send a box of trash rocks. We all want items that we would be glad to have in our collections and your gift should reflect that. Remember that this is for the 25th December Holiday! A major part of this exchange, indeed , a compulsory part is to post pictures of the gifts that you receive. What annoyed Doren even more than people posting late was people not posting what they'd been sent. Please photograph what you get when you receive it, before the specimens disappear into you collections. Share with us. We want to see what Santa sent you. That's half the fun! If you don't feel the rules and deadlines are suitable for you, then please refrain from signing up for this event. We have had shed loads of fun with these events in the past and hope to keep it that way. LET THE FOLLIES BEGIN ! ! !
  11. boomershouse

    Kids found at beach

    My kids found these at the beach posting for kidos. Feel free to reply so I can share with them. They named them drumstick, hand or mitten and chicken foot
  12. Hello there! As it's getting nicer outside and things slowly turning back to normal, many of us are able to go out and enjoy the weather again. I journeyed to one of my favorite Burlington exposures just 10 minutes from my home. As it was so nice outside, I ran into a lot of friendly fishermen. Not unlike usual, its just me there for the fossils! My favorite spot I'm heading to has me walking a few miles before I start to hit the sweet spots. Along the few mile walk there, it looks like the beavers have been busy. You can tell as you approach the Burlington limestone alone by all the bits and pieces scattered along the nearby land. Today I decided to hunt the bank along the shore, and a layer about 10 feet above it. I have had good luck before finding some calyxs eroded out of the limestone by the waters edge, but the layer above requires splitting stone and further prep with air tools. All in all, I spent about 5 hours out fossil hunting. I've got about 75% of the finds cleaned up so far with the air scribe. Been cleaning as I go. A few of them still needs some scribe work, but I bagged a great variety! Species in the first picture. Crinoids: Azygocrinus rotundus, Uperocrinus pyriformis, Aorocrinus parvus, unknown species. Blastoids: Schizoblastus sayi Actinocrinites multiradiatus Very weathered Dorycrinus missouriensis (the famous 5 spined crinoid) Uperocrinus pyriformis Although the focus was on crinoids, I wanted to share my favorite piece of solitary and colonial corals found on the trip as well. I know some of you like pretty, sparkly corals. I like the crystalized caverns displayed in this one. And who doesn't like naturally exposed, colorful coral sections. That's all for this trip. I hope you all are able to get back out there, and enjoy yourselves and nature as soon as possible. Thanks for journeying along!
  13. Hi all Due to the lockdown, I’ve decided that I’m going to clean out my fossil room. This is a room that is full of fossils that are not prepped, part prepped or I just haven’t got around to displaying/labelling or storing properly. As you can see, the rooms a mess as I don’t really use it for anything apart from storage. Any prepping I do, I do outside, weather permitting. Following a request from @Ash, I will post some pictures as I tidy the room this week. Again weather permitting. Hope you find this interesting.
  14. boomershouse

    South Texas hunting id welcome

    Rock, fossil hunting let me know if anything like bone is present.
  15. Following the naming convention of others before me, I had the 1st hunting trip of the new decade (at least at Big Brook!). I was the only one in the parking lot 1/1/20. I think I've actually hunted all three holidays this season, and enjoyed the nice time in nature. Here are some of my finds. Andy
  16. minnbuckeye

    Fossiling for Children

    The fossil/rock club that I belong to was asked to be part of a craft show in Morrison, Iowa this past weekend. The president asked for assistance months ago. I did not volunteer initially because it was a 2.5 hour drive for me. But as of Thursday, help was still needed. What I didn't realize was that in addition to my physical attendance, I was to put together a project for children!!! Now this is Thursday evening and I needed to be in Iowa Saturday. The president informed me that last year 200 youngsters went through their set up. So here is my project and results: I decided to make 200 rocks full of fossils for the kids to open. Having never done this before and only 24 hours to prepare, I was a bit nervous. The following recipe was found on TFF. @caldigger made the suggestion of using dry wall powder instead of plaster of paris. I used both. Plaster of paris dried faster and was a harder finished product. Dry wall powder, on the other hand, being markedly cheaper, $9 for a bag that made me grunt carrying it to the car, and the ease of breaking open for the children, I would recommend it over plaster of paris. As for sand and the drywall powder, different proportions were tried but I felt a 1 part sand to 2 parts drywall powder worked the best. Bright and early Friday morning I collected enough loose fossils to embed in the plaster. This was my work site. Notice the bottle of cinnamon, a suggestion for coloring the fossils in the article. Save the cinnamon for what it was intended for, human consumption. I will speak on coloring the "rocks" later: And the work begins. First blobs of plaster were laid out. DO NOT PLACE ON NEWSPAPER!!!! Use wax paper. The children were quick to point out that there was lettering on their "rocks". The dye of the newspaper bled through onto the plaster. Next, liberally wet your hands with Pam cooking oil then grab a handful of fossils. Roll them around in your hands for awhile until coated lightly with the oil. Push each into the plaster. This did wonders at keeping plaster residue off of the fossils. At this point, I tried many ways to cover the fossils up. My best and quickest results came by letting the bottom plaster firm just a bit and then pouring a thinner layer of plaster over the top. Now to speak on coloring the "rocks". I tried cinnamon, I tried painting. Neither technique thrilled me. And to paint 200, not going to happen. So I was thinking of what to do when I looked down at the "filthy"bowl of water that I would rinse my brush out in. Why not dip a nice white rock into it and see what happened. It worked GREAT at instilling a fairly natural color to the stark white and one can color 200 items in about 5 minutes. I experimented with different colors in the water. The examples in the back of the picture below came out the best. I did find that to create a little 2 tone look, lightly brush the colored rock with a different color while it is still wet from it's bath and it added to it's look tremendously. Here is my first 100. And yes there are a few pink ones. I always wanted my daughter to be a "tom boy", but she grew up a "girly girl". She is now grown and on her own and we recently took her bed out of her bedroom. I found about 20 small "diamonds" in the carpet where the bed used to rest. Why not add these to some pink plaster (along with some fossils). They went like hotcakes and brought smiles when opened. And in all honesty, the children chose the pink and white samples over the browns. So in the future, maybe I would not try and mimic rock. And make orange, green, red, pink, blue, and yellow ones.
  17. FossilForKids

    Millard County Hunt

    I’m going to U-Dig, the surrounding area and Cowboy pass in Utah Late September. Let me know if you’d like to go. This is some of what I’ve found there but I have found so much more.
  18. JohnBrewer

    Fun Venn diagrams

    Here’s a couple of funny Venn diagrams
  19. A while back, I received a package from our good friend Adam, better known as @Tidgy's Dad. In said package was a small plastic dinosaur that had apparently been gifted to him by none other than @JohnBrewer. This means that this little fella had started his journey in England, made his way to Morocco, and had since travelled to the United States. It was decided after careful consideration that his name was to be Gorgeous George the Globetrotting Gorgosaurus. Now he is traveling the globe spreading joy and cheer to members of TFF! If you are fortunate enough to play host to Gorgeous George, here are the rules: 1. George must be photographed in his host's collection. 2. He must then be sent to an unsuspecting TFF-er along with any trade. (You can't notify the recipient that they are getting him, he must be an unannounced visitor!) 3. He should be accompanied by a note in case the recipient is not familiar with proper Globetrotting Gorgosaurus procedure. 4. In order to increase the odds of surprising his new host, his visit photo should be uploaded only AFTER he has been received at his new temporary home. *NOTE: The hope is that in addition to having fun, this will also give members the chance to share their collections and have their prizes be seen. That being said, he must be photographed with his host collection. This does not mean that he cannot also take field trips to collecting sites and other landmarks and be photographed there as well! (Thank you to @DPS Ammonite for the suggestions!) Let's see how many miles we can put on this little plastic dino! Don't forget to have fun!
  20. Andy B

    Big Brook Treats

    I wanted to post a couple pics from this weekend. I found a few teeth and things I am happy with. I could use a verification on the identities though. Thanks for looking!! Andy I think these 2 teeth are both Cretolamna Appendiculata. A very nice fish vertabra? And finally my favorite bivalve to find in the brook. I can't identify it for you though. It reminds me of the giant clam that tried to eat Batman and Robin back in the 60's.
  21. Fun playing with the microscope camera, yet disappointing. After putting it under the microscope, I am pretty sure this Meadowtownella crosotus I found this summer is only a partial.
×
×
  • Create New...