A New Puppy For My Birthday!

My birthday isn't for another few weeks, but seeing as my Dad has been promising me a puppy for doing well in my exams and we're pretty much unable to afford my birthday this year, we're combining the two and I've got a new puppy today!

We got him from Kelly's Kennels, where they had a fair range of choice of breeds, such as cocker spaniels, cavachons, dachshunds, etc. Out of all the breeds though, I wanted a Westie, as my grandparents used to have a lovely little Westie chap called Frasier, and he died about five years ago and I loved him to pieces. Also, there's a cute Westie in Jeeves and Wooster that belongs to the evil Aunt Agatha, so how could I resist?Out of the two dogs on show I liked him best, as it seemed he chose me by not stopping licking my face, whereas the other was still and less playful.
Right away I called him Bertie, after my favourite fictional character, and it just seemed right for him. He's so little and adorable that I didn't want to put him down! His birthday is the 31st July, which is funny seeing as Indy's birthday is the 31st March! That makes him nine to ten weeks today.

Call Me the Beetle Mortician

Or don't, because my technique was very amateurish. :D

So, recently my rainbow stag beetle died and I was planning on making a memento mori necklace out of his body (which sounds very morbid when I think about it, but I assure you I had the best intentions). I went ahead and bought the resin on eBay as well as a soap mold to place him in. Of course I had a test run with a couple of buttons, but from that I saw that using resin was a bad idea:

1) Only one of the trials turned out well, whereas the other had a strange lumpy texture to it. I suppose some water must have gotten into it.
2) It stinks awfully. My whole house smelled strongly of the stuff for ages afterwards, and even with the protective plastic casings we could still smell it.
3) It's nasty. Along with the smell, dust from sanding gets into your eyes and lungs, making you feel like you've taken a shift at a Victorian workhouse, rather than making an innocent little necklace. And when it touches your skin? You feel like you're burning. Not good for jewelry.
4) It clouds up with fingerprints when you touch the finished thing.
5) It's far too big and chunky for a necklace.

With all those reasons, my project got put on the back burner. So instead, I thought about making a picture frame with it, which was a lot better. But when it died, its legs were curled up under its body, some were sticking out weirdly, and its inner wings were half out of its hard body; so I decided to don my mortician head and set about making it look more presentable. This wasn't hard, strangely enough.
All I needed was a small tub of boiled water, some tweezers, a cocktail stick, and some small nail scissors.
First I cut the wings off/clipped them so they weren't on show, and boiled some water with the kettle. Then I waited for it to cool for a few moments, and dangled the parts of the beetle that I wanted moving into the tub. Take care not to stick the whole thing in, as with most specimens the eyes will remain in the body, and I'm not sure whether they'll take boiling hot water too well.
Place the body onto some paper or kitchen roll, and move the legs gently with a cocktail stick so that they look natural. This should be quite easy, though take care as the legs may still be quite brittle.
If there is still some slight mold remaining (as I left this project quite late), dab at the patches with some surgical spirit on a cotton bud, and hopefully it shall come away. The outside of the beetle should be perfectly fine as it's so hard and tough. Any legs or antennae that fall off or get damaged can always be glued back on with super glue (I used gorilla glue rather successfully).
Finally, you can mount it on to some decorative paper into a picture frame, and make sure that it fits before you seal the frame with silicone glue.

The Beetle Book - Steve Jenkins

What a lovely book! The illustrations are bright and fun, perfect for a book like this. They're actually made of pieces of coloured paper torn and cut to shape, and indeed, they're incredibly intricate and delicate!
I purposely didn't go for a massive, encyclopedia-like book on beetles as that would just be too tedious to read for the time being. Books like these are perfect for beginners, children, or generally people who just love beautiful pictures. As well as being colourful and pleasing to the eye, it is also contains many interesting facts and tidbits of information.
I learned many new things, such as what beetles live in Europe and England, that some beetles are cannibals (the female firefly can lure a male firefly to her by pretending to be a different species of firefly, and then eat him!), and that some beetles live in bodies of water.

Here are a couple of pages that I particularly liked:

Sad News

Yesterday I found my male rainbow stag beetle curled up and motionless in their enclosure, embarrassingly enough when I was showing a foreign relative my pets. The original seller of the beetles stated in the email that they can die very suddenly for no apparent reason, but I was still quite shocked and upset to see it happen so soon. I know they're insects, but I feel like I've lost half my rainbow team and have to admit to shedding a few tears. :(
I knew it would happen though, which was why I called the duo collectively "The Beatles"(I suppose you could say 'John Lennon' or 'Ringo Star' has kicked the bucket again) so that I wouldn't get too attached to creatures that only live a few months.

Thankfully my female is still alive and thriving - looking rather strong, actually - and it seems they have been mating a couple of times; hopefully in a couple of months I'll have some eggs to collect.

In the meantime I'm thinking of what to do with the poor little guy's body. It would be a crime to just throw him away, being so beautiful to look at. So I'm considering preserving him in resin after carefully rearranging his legs. People make jewelry from dead insects, don't they? It would be a good opportunity to get crafty and experiment, but on the other hand I'm still feeling a bit weird about making a former pet into an accessory... Respect for the dead, and all that.

Patterns in Nature

Photos taken for my future Textiles class at college, where we shall use the textures to inspire designs, sketches and fabric art! These include my bearded dragon - Spyro - my rainbow stag beetles, and my larvae (which seem to have grown quite a lot recently!). Speaking of the rainbow stag beetles, it seems I have caught them in the act for a second time, so perhaps soon I shall be expecting some more beetle offspring!

Parcel from Max: Beetle Unboxing

A few days ago my father ordered a breeding pair of rainbow stag beetles, as well as four L2 dynastes hercules lichyi pupaes from Max at http://beetlesaspets.blogspot.co.uk/. They arrived very quickly and were stored comfortably in little plastic boxes. It was very exciting unboxing them and holding the beetles for the first time! Surprisingly, even my sister joined in - though she did scream a bit when she saw the larvae. 

I'm really pleased with them and can't wait to see them progress as they grow older! 

 

Welcome!

 Hello, welcome to my new blog! My other blog is a currently-private, personal blog about my hobbies and isn't particularly specialised in anything - just my random ramblings - but this blog, as you can see, is all about beetles.
For now I'll try and keep my posts centered around the insect world, but in the future I may branch out onto the broader subject of animals, such as my pet dogs, cat and lizard.

I'm Ellie, and I live in the UK. I love animals and have many hobbies based around arts and crafts, so in the future you may see my sketches and photographs of insects, and perhaps even textile pieces! I'm a collect-o-maniac that has an interest particularly around natural objects (rocks, fossils, semi-precious stones, insects, and all kinds of weird specimens!), as well as rare and historical things (like old books, china tea set pieces, dolls, ornaments and pictures).
I've always been an avid collector since I was very young, which some would think is down to my Asperger's syndrome - yet I just love the feeling of seeking out new pieces! 
Beetle collecting and (possibly) breeding is very new to me, so I'd love to see how I progress from here.