At Curious Nature, we find new things very exciting. That’s why we work day in and day out to bring you thrilling items as often as we can, to keep things fresh and different. Customers often find that when they come in after a week or two, everything looks renewed, with new items placed neatly in with the others. Being able to find something you hadn’t seen the last time you were in is pretty fun, in our opinion. Here are five of our January favorites!
- Decomposition Journals and Notebooks
Each decomposition book is made with 100% post-consumer-waste recycled pages. With a variety of themes like Celestial, Spirit Animal, Under the Sea, Wood grain, or Honeycomb, there’s a notebook to suit any style or taste. The front and back inside covers feature black and white sketched and adventurer’s notes so you can be inspired to start your own exploration of the natural world (or your intensive notes from chemistry class). Use them for hiking observations, lecture notes, ideas and inspiration, to-do lists, or pretty much anything that comes to mind. The opportunities are endless (especially with prices starting at $4.99)!
- New Wet Specimens
While we have always had a fairly large selection of wet specimens, this month we have expanded our collection to carry a multitude of new species we haven’t had before. Some of these include starfish, mini crabs, chicks, large diaphanized snakes, and even a lamb fetus—just to name a few. As an avid collector knows, sometimes these newer products can go quick, so don’t wait!
3. Coffin Plates
We have actually had these five coffin plates for a few months now, but few people know what they are unless we tell them! Coffin plates went out of style in the early 1900’s, when coffins were replaced with caskets. They were usually made of soft metals like lead, silver, copper, or pewter. It also became a tradition later on to remove the plates from the casket before burial for the loved ones of the departed to keep as a sort of momento. The five plates we have are all antique, dating back as far as the early 1920’s and two of them (‘At Rest’ and ‘Our Darling’) are from children’s coffins. Today, they are must have pieces for any collector of momento mori.
- Copper-plated Jewelry
We have begun experimenting in even more of our own in-house production adventures now with copper formed jewelry. The process is much more scientific than one might assume off the bat, and involves a positive and negative electric current to plate the metal to an item. We so far have dabbled with small skulls and jawbones, seahorses and a starfish, and we successfully created rings out of raw opal that turned out much better than we had expected! All of these are one of a kind, not to mention undeniably fashionable.
- Corals
We now have a variety of dried and preserved corals in stock, for those who need a splash of ocean life in their curiosity cabinet or collections. From lettuce coral to Red Pipe coral, there are quite a few larger pieces to choose from. All of them add a lovely accent to skulls, wet specimens, or mounted insects with their natural architecture and color. Our personal favorite is the Open Lettuce Coral, which measures a whopping 15” wide!
