The ZOO, the ZOO, I'm going to the ZOO, ZOO, ZOO

I could add more to the ZOO photo display (possibly the names!)  but basically it is finished.My TLC tutor has seen it. Now what do I do with it?
Hamilton Zoo contains a lot of interesting animals. I took the photos over a year. My camera is only a small one (Panasonic Lumix  DMC-TZ1) and in the time I focus on an animal and press the button the subject has had lots of time to move and does. So I was pleasantly surprised to find I had as many good photos as I did. More than enough to make this display.
I will keep on going to the zoo. I renewed my pass for this year. When we were there a few weeks ago the keeper told us that one of the big female white rhinos was just about ready to give birth. She certainly was acting up, running around chasing the other rhinos away from her.  There was a newspaper notice the next week that the new baby was born so I hope to have a new subject for my camera next visit, baby rhino.

I used four covers from old books for this project. Glued together and covered with material and paper.

Here is part of the cover on the right and photo covered interior and exterior "pages".

The animals and birds are displayed in groups. On the left are chimpanzees, lemurs , spider monkeys etc. On the right are exotic birds including my favourite -- masked love birds.

Native New Zealand birds are grouped together. Some of them live together in the large aviary. Others are in breeding cages. Some like the kea are in a separate cage to protect both the visiting humans and the other birds. Kea are very inquisitive big parrots and have long sharp beaks.

I added small extra 'books' to the display. This one features African hunting dogs.

The small book has pages with different pictures of the dogs. Then the book can be opened out and a larger picture of one of the dogs is in the inside (see below).

My Very Gaudy Treasure Box -- Finished!

The brass pieces were fixed to the black card with small brads and glue. Some of the 'jewels' were glued onto the brads while others were glued onto the brass. The black card was glued onto the cardboard body of the box.

I fixed a shelf into the box and glued onto it a piece of foam core board. I had cut into the core board to make places for the antique nails to rest. Then I covered the core board with some nice green felt. Originally I was going to use velvet but I had the felt on hand and it looked quite nice.

I used some of the brass to make three loops, two on the body and one on the lid. The brass covered piece of small diameter dowel makes a good fastener.  I was pretty much making up the construction as I went along. Another time I might look for a different way of fastening the box, something that might be less clumsy looking.