An Elephant a Day 2.0

World Society for the Protection of Animals
The Nature Conservancy

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)

Thursday, 23 April 2015

Elephant No. 128: Three Little Purses

While sorting through a bunch of stuff as part of my spring cleaning, I came across this trio of cute little purses. I've had them all for a number of years now, but use them sparingly — mostly because they don't hold a lot, and because I'm definitely a messenger-bag kind of girl.

I picked up this beaded change purse in London nearly ten years ago, from a street vendor near Blackfriars Bridge. It doesn't look much like an elephant, but I kind of like the abstract oddity of it.

I picked up this funky square bag — with tiny bells, no less — a few years back at a local fair trade shop called Ten Thousand Villages.

And this pretty little number was a gift from my friend Cynthia, with the hopeful suggestion that I could use it to carry just my phone, some cash and a credit card. Instead, in hangs on display near my desk.

The first is Chinese in manufacture; the second two are Indian, but all of them are handmade, and they're all cute enough that they're never going out the door with my yearly cast-offs.

Elephant Lore of the Day
Today is YouTube's tenth birthday. I didn't know this, but my friend Lo pointed out this morning that the world's very first YouTube video featured—you guessed it—elephants.

In the 19-second video—titled simply "Me at the zoo"—YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim stands in front of an elephant enclosure and says a few words about the elephants behind him. The video is embedded below. To read more about Karim and YouTube's début, click here.

Happy Birthday, YouTube! And cool about the elephants.

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)

Sunday, 25 January 2015

Elephant No. 114: Duct Tape Wallet

A couple of years ago, I made a duct tape elephant for my original Elephant a Day blog. He was cute but wasn't terribly practical, so today I thought I'd try making a duct tape wallet.

I started by buying a bunch of duct tape in pretty colours and patterns. My idea was to have a patterned background, with a solid-coloured elephant, and some sort of extra decorations, should I feel so inclined. The coloured duct tape seems to come in rolls of 10 feet/3 metres, so make sure to buy two rolls of your main colour.

My original idea was to take a wallet I already have and use it a template. But the very idea made my brain hurt. Instead, I looked on YouTube, and found a fantastic step-by-step tutorial by Chloe Hsu.

Because her tutorial is so good, I won't describe all the steps here with measurements and such, but the photographs below will give you an idea of how I got to the basic bifold wallet.

Now it was time to make an elephant to decorate it. I wasn't sure if I wanted one elephant that stretched across the entire wallet, one elephant on each half, or just one elephant on the front, so I decided to do a rough sketch. I decided on an elephant on each half.

To create the elephants, I laid down two strips of purple duct tape. I made a cardboard template and traced around it twice, then cut everything out with a craft knife.

It was fun, but a bit plain, so I added acrylic rhinestones.

I wanted to bring a touch of purple to the inside, so I added some purple duct tape crowns, also with rhinestones.

It's a great design, with six credit card pockets, two hidden pockets and a place for money. It's not terribly practical for a barbarian like me, but it was easy and fun to make, and would make a great project for kids.

Elephant Lore of the Day

For centuries, elephants have appeared on coins and banknotes—sometimes representing countries with indigenous elephant populations, but just as often not.

The British province of Carolina, for example—which was roughly equivalent to the southeastern United States—had an elephant coin in 1694.

Carolina coin, 1694
Source: himandus.net

In 1990, the Cook Islands issued a tiny coin bearing an elephant, described as "smaller than a pinkie fingernail and quite thin."

Cook Islands $25 coin, 1990
Source: himandus.net

An eighteenth-century coin from Coventry, England, featured Lady Godiva on one side, and an elephant on the other. In this case, however, the elephant made a certain amount of sense, as an elephant with a castle on its back was a symbol of Coventry and featured on its coat of arms.

Coventry halfpenny, 1792
Source: himandus.net

African countries, of course, have always featured elephants prominently on their currency, and coins from ancient Greece and Rome often bore images of war elephants.

Coin from Seleucid Empire, Greece.
145–144 B.C.
Source: himandus.net

Coin from rule of Julius Caesar
49–44 B.C.
Source: himandus.net

My favourite elephant coin of all, however, is this gold coin from the Western Gangas kingdom, which flourished in central India from about A.D. 300–1000. The stylized design is gorgeous, and I may just reproduce this little guy at some point.

Coin from Western
Gangas empire
A.D. 1200–1400
Source: himandus.net

For an excellent overview of coins, currency and metal tokens depicting elephants, click here.

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)

Saturday, 3 January 2015

Elephant No. 92: Devin's Hair Clip

Knowing how much I like elephants, my niece Devin asked her Mom to take a picture of her cute hair clip and send it to me. My first thought was that I should try to make something similar—I even bought all the materials. Then I decided that this elephant was perfect as it was, perched on the head of a pretty little girl.

Devin and her perfect hair clip.
Photo: Alison Robb

Elephant Lore of the Day
Although elephants appear to be bald creatures whose only hair is a smal wisp at the ends of their tails, elephants are actually covered with short, coarse hairs. Baby elephants are particularly hairy at birth, although much of that hair eventually falls out.

Those of us who live in cold climates tend to think of hair and fur as insulators against the cold: the thicker the hair or fur, the warmer the animal. In October 2012, however, scientist Elie Bou-Zeid and a team of researchers from Princeton University discovered that elephant hair actually serves a very different purpose. Instead of keeping the elephant warm, hair actually wicks heat away, helping to cool the animal.

Hair on the back of an African elephant's head (left) and an Asian
elephant's head (right).
Photo: Conor Myhrvold
Source: http://www.livescience.com/23874-elephant-hair-keeps-cool.html

Elephants—which generally live in the hottest parts of the world—have many ways of regulating body temperature. The many veins in their ears vent heat, which is partly why elephants flap their ears. They also have various points on their bodies which release body heat into the air. They spray themselves with water, hang out in shady areas, and cover themselves in mud. Hair as a cooling mechanism, however, was something entirely new.

The team discovered that heat from an elephant's skin is transferred to the base of the hairs. The heat is then conducted up the hair to the tip, where it dissipates. A similar effect has been observed on some plants, such as cacti.

The deciding factor is apparently the density of the hair. Elephants average only one hair per square inch, whereas humans average 1,290 hairs per square inch. More hair means more insulation, and less hair helps cool things off. This has more to do with the properties of hair, and less to do with the cooling effects of air blowing across a relatively hairless surface. For more on this story, please click here.

Baby Asian elephants are quite furry at birth. This six-week-old elephant
will lose much of her furry coat by the age of three, although she
will have some hair throughout her life. Asian elephants tend
to be hairier than African elephants.
Photo: David Caird
Source: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/photos/photos-e6frf94x-
1225828429810?page=11

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)

Saturday, 26 October 2013

Elephant No. 54: Feathered Mask

Hallowe'en is less than a week away, so I thought I'd try making an elephant Hallowe'en mask. I made a masquerade mask in my original blog, but I've never tried making something like this.

Inspired by this $2.00 mask from the dollar store, I decided to deck it out with feathers.

And, of course, I chose purple feathers.

I started with by glueing on a bunch of feathers to make the elephant's ears. Although I'm useless with a glue gun, it was the quickest option, so that's what I used. I hate glue guns.

Next came the trunk. I'd been thinking about how I'd do this for a few days, and decided that it would work best if I used muslin for the general trunk shape, wired so that the trunk could be rolled up and out of the way, if need be.

I cut a piece of muslin measuring about 20 by 2.5 inches (50.8 x 6.3 cm), tapering slightly towards the bottom.

Before glueing feathers to it, I attached three lines of 22-gauge wire to the upper side with hot glue. Thin lines of hot glue are usually flexible enough to allow for the curve of the trunk, so I hoped this would work.

For the trunk, I chose small and rather fluffy purple feathers.

I began by glueing the muslin into the nose area of the mask, then stuck feathers into the same opening before the glue hardened. I then transferred my attention to the bottom of the trunk and began glueing feathers from the bottom up. Once the upper side of the trunk was done, I flipped it over and glued feathers to the underside, all the way into the nose area.

To finish up the design, I glued a pair of peacock feathers to the centre top.

This turned out way better than I expected it would, and it's actually quite wearable, as you can see below on the stuffed animal that I forced to wear it. I probably won't wear it myself this Hallowe'en—I'm pretty sure I'd scare tiny trick-or-treaters into the next county—but I like it enough that I may even look for a place to display it.

Elephant Lore of the Day

Elephants are the only mammals, other than humans, known to have specific death rituals.

If an elephant dies in front of them, elephants will at first try to revive the stricken animal by attempting to lift it to its feet. When that doesn't work, they begin to grieve with loud rumbles and shrieks, before falling silent. They then toss dirt and leaves on the dead elephant, and begin a solemn vigil that lasts two or three days.

Nor are they indifferent to fallen humans. Stories abound in Africa of elephants either trying to help hurt humans, or trying to bury humans they believe to be dead.

Kenyan game warden George Adamson (of Born Free fame), tells the story of an elderly Turkana woman who fell asleep under a tree on her way home. When she awoke, there was an elephant standing above her, gently running its trunk over her body. Knowing how dangerous elephants can be, the terrified woman stayed silent and still.

Soon, other elephants began arriving. Trumpeting loudly, they began burying the woman under branches, then stood quietly beside her for a while. In the morning, she was found by local herders, completely unharmed.

Elephants often pause to examine the bones of other elephants.
Photo: Karen McComb
Source: https://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-
Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2013/Animal-Mourning.aspx

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)