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QUESTION We have a cottage at Johnson Harbour on Lake Huron. A lot of deer winter there and every spring we collect the antlers they've left behind. We've accumulated quite a collection and are wondering if you have any ideas about how to display them or perhaps how to make something out of them? Sue Gremm, Johnson Harbour, Ont.
ANSWER So-called cast antlers are part of a deer's natural cycle and are shed over the winter, following the mating season, then re-grown in early spring. Antlers are bone, safe to handle, and often used by artisans to carve or paint. They can also be fashioned into a surprising number of household products: toilet paper holders, towel racks, pen holders, pool table lights, coffee mug holders, napkin rings, and even slingshots. But you're decorating your cottage, not selling gewgaws on the Trans-Canada, so we approached Catherine Doherty, design expert and reuser of many discarded items for Cottage Life's former Revival column, for some more tasteful alternatives. Doherty's suggestions: Hang them outdoors for towels or bathing suits, or indoors as a chandelier; arrange them individually or together as a table base with a glass or Plexiglas tabletop; use them as a border around a large room with high ceilings or, if they're large enough, as a 3-D guest book with visitors writing directly on their surface. Doherty's favourite option is to place them in and around your garden or use them to make a short border or fence.
Sharon Breckenridge, a Thunder Bay artisan who uses antlers as handles in some of the baskets she creates, notes that the bone can be difficult to work with because it is hard and slippery. She recommends that anyone attempting to drill through antlers for mounting use a brad bit - a Twizzler-shaped drill bit ending in a sharp point. Her other tip: "If you have too many of them in one place they can lose their appeal." And remember, while there's nothing wrong with collecting antlers and using them to enhance your cottage, Ontario law prohibits trading in animal parts and requires anyone buying or selling more than a single set of antlers to obtain a licence
Steve Brearton
* Published in the July/August 2006 issue of Cottage Life |