Brief Explanation
One of the best gifts is when you meet someone and get to learn about their hobby, like really learn, get to ask questions, find out how complicated it is and you're probably still just scratching the surface. This person lives it, breaths it, and after being shown how it's done and you're just happy to have learned about it, that person hands you one of the things they spent their heart and soul making. You look try to hand it back and they go "no, that's for you" just because you appreciated what they do.
That's why I made this. My girlfriend at the time's lab manager spends her time diving into the ocean and searching for abalone shells. Massive shells from a sea mollusk that when polished, shine with beautiful opalescent colors. They look like this:
When I started my hobby/art I began with 3D printing, but thanks to Tuscon Arizona's gem and mineral show, my focus got to fossils and other natural objects pretty quickly. My girlfriend heard this and brought me her collection of shells from when she was little. The thought came to me pretty quickly.
"Shells?! I know exactly what I can do with these! I can make something for your lab manager!"
Don't worry, I made pieces for my girlfriendas well. It wasn't the easiest, I had a lot of learning it do, heck, most of my copper plating attempts were still taking forever, I even managed to particially disintegrate a snail shell in the process. After a bunch of attempts though, I had it. Most of my plates were finally coming out nice a shiny. So I plated this:
Copper
The next question was, what metal should I make it? In the back of my head I thought gold, but I didn't know if A. that would really look the best, B. if that would be excessive for a shell on it's own not turned into a necklace or something. The answer was I was overthinking it. Funnily enough, while it sat as copper, it turned out that the lab managers birthday was coming up! I decided to stick to my gut, so I plated it in nickel to prep it:
Nickel
I loved the way it looked coated in nickel, but committed to not stopping there or being tempted. Then I plated it in gold immediately after:
Gold
Watching it change to gold was such a treat, I gave an audible "wow" before it was even done plating. I wasn't able to give it to my girlfriend's lab manager myself, but I heard she was over the moon about it and that warmed my heart. I hope it gave her the same joy that giving my the abalone shell did.
