Shark Tooth Shadow Box

We collected hundreds of shark teeth walking along the beach when we lived in North Carolina. Part of the reason we found so many was because we spent our time on a beach where it was more common to run into this than a group of beachcombers...

I kept all of the teeth in a ziploc bag that was packed and unpacked each time we moved but I always planned to display them. With a shadow box style frame leftover from another project I decided to make a collage out of as many of the teeth as I could fit.

With a sea star spray painted black for the center, I started sliding the teeth around until I liked the pattern they made and then glued them in place. Some of the teeth are so tiny that I needed tweezers just to grip them and one is big enough to scare me.

Gluing the teeth down was tedious but I'm glad to have found a home for some of our North Carolina souvenirs after keeping them in a bag for seven years!

While I was gluing them in the frame, there was shark play going on next to me at the table in a blue kinetic sand "ocean" that we made this morning.

Even though we spent a lot of time at secluded parts of the beach on base, I found the biggest tooth while walking our dog on a heavily populated part of Topsail Island. When I told my father about my find he asked me to send him a photo of it next to a tape measure.

That's the photo I sent him. (I hope because I was trying to be funny.)

Here's a close up look at the teeth arranged on the frame backing.

As for where I'm going to hang the shadow box, it seems only fitting to hang all of these teeth in the dining room!