Beautiful hand-painted tiger jewelry (pin)

This beautiful hand-made, hand-painted tiger jewelry was crafted in Washington state, USA. At $29.00, it makes a completely unique gift or keepsake priced that could fit your pocketbook in this difficult economy.

Meet Corinna Sara Bechko, an artist who helps save tapirs

For quite a few years now, Corinna Sara Bechko has been making jewelry for our online gift shop. She creates tapirs and other animals and has the most amazingly artistic assortment of beads that she pairs with the animals. Earrings and pendants come with beads - pins do not. If you ask for a blue bead, you'll get a blue piece of art, whether it's the simply elegant blue bead above, or something with an elaborate design. In any case, they always set off the jewelry to a T. No two pieces are ever alike!

I was excited to find that Corinna was interviewed on the Shrimp Salad Circus blog the other day. Please go on over and take a look! Corinna and her Etsy store (The Frog Bag) are the subject of the post. She has been donating a portion of her sales to the tapirs. She's also conducting a give-away on her blog. Check it out and win one of her most amazing hand-made zoology-inspired cat toys.

Butterfly jewelry

We have stunning hand-painted pewter butterfly jewelry you won't want to miss! Are you a butterfy fan? But then, who doesn't love these beautiful, harmless, spirit-lifting insects? Come check them out on our page of hand-painted butterfly and insect jewelry!

We have animals that start with "Y"!

This is our yellow Labrador (or yellow Lab) hand-painted pewter pin. Thanks to the color yellow, we actually have a number of animals that start with "Y." They're all hand-painted pins, and you can find every one of them pictured in our online web album. We even have a fish pin that actually DOES start with "Y." It's a yamame, but we haven't scanned it yet, so if you'd like to see our yellow-finned (yes!) yamame, give us a call at (888) 325-3179 or send e-mail.

Above is the (double) yellow-headed Amazon parrot. We have several color variations, so be sure to look in our album, linked above.

This looks like a yellow-crested cockatoo.

This poison frog's name probably doesn't start with Y, but we're stretching here to come up with a blogful of yellow animals, and the frog pin is absolutely gorgeous!

This greyhound is quite yellow.

And what is a collection of yellow animals without including a flock of cute baby chickens?

Our koi carp could be called "gold," but the paint on it is very yellow, so today it's a yellow koi carp. Look how beautiful it is! Each scale stands out in physical and visual relief.

This sunny collection of animals has been brought to you by Tapir and Friends Wildlife World Online Store!

What animal do we have that starts with "X"? How about a Horseshoe Crab? (The scientific name, of course!)

I was stumped! I couldn't think of any animal we have in the store that starts with "X," so I looked it up online. It seems that if you include the scientific names, there are a lot! Here's a list of the ones given on the WikiAnswers site. As it turns out, there is a horseshoe crab is of the genus Xiphosuran. I found some pictures of them here, and it's really interesting to see how they walk under water! The horseshoe crab pictured above is from our wonderful and extensive collection of realistic animal jewelry. You can find our horseshoe crab pin on this page. They are hand made in the US, which includes hand painting. They're first cast in pewter, painted, and covered with layers of lacquer, making the finish extremely durable, shiny, and very, very beautiful. You can see part of our line of animal pins in our web album. We still have more to scan, so if you don't see the animal jewelry you want, please call us at (888) 325-3179. The number is toll free, and we're on West Coast time in the US.

Plastic frogs, frog jewelry . . . the coolest gifts!

Whether your're looking for a plastic frog such as the harlequin poison dart frog pictured above, or something special like a hand-painted frog pin (see a variety of frog pins below), check out our web pages for frog jewelry, plastic frogs and other frog gifts. We even have Peeper Keeper eyeglass holders in the shape of a frog!

Gorgeous new tiger jewelry (hand-painted pin)

UPDATE: The tiger pin is now online and ready to order!

The new tiger on the block is this lovely hand-painted pin. It's two inches long (larger than most of our other hand-painted jewelry) and is beautifully detailed, shiny and durable. Wear it with pride and confidence! If people don't ask where you got such an interesting pin, we'll be totally surprised. As of today, this tiger has just entered our lineup, and is not yet on the web site. You can order the painted tiger pin at $29.00 each by calling (503) 325-3179 in Astoria, Oregon. You can also call toll free (888) 325-3179. We look forward to hearing from you!

If you like the idea of painted animal jewelry, but the tiger is not your cup of tea, please check out our other wonderful and unusual exotic and domestic animals. Check them out via our hand-painted jewelry menu page. If you still don't see the animal you're looking for, just give us a call!

Greyhound dog pin (hand-painted jewelry)

Here's another one of our outstanding dog pins. We have LOTS of dogs, and many not even online yet. Give us a call at (888) 325-3179 and let us know what you're looking for. We have many breeds of dog plus some cats, ocean fish, freshwater fish and much, much more! You can visit our web site here, too!

Gorgeous pink flamingo jewelry

You can't beat this beautiful pink flamingo hand-painted jewelry for lifelike detail and charm. This is a wonderful and affordable gift or collector's item. Don't most of us know someone who loves pink flamingos? Look at the wonderful detail. It's all hand-painted in the USA. The flamingo mould is also made in the USA and hand-cast in pewter before being painted. This gives it some body and detailing before the paint even goes on. Click here to purchase or learn more about these wonderful pins!

Cow jewelry - beautiful hand-painted pin!

Who likes cow jewelry? Mooooo! I do do! Maybe you do, too. A lot of people collect cows, and this cow is highly collectible and of excellent quality to wear, give, or keep for yourself. You can read more about how this outstanding hand-made jewelry is created in the USA and you can order from us online. Please come take a look! Moooo! We also have sheep, goats, chickens, pigs, and other farm animal hand-painted pins.

Greyhound dog jewelry - hand-painted pin (and other animal gifts!)

If you're looking for a gift for a dog-lover in your life, this hand-painted greyhound dog might be just the ticket. Or if one of our five greyhound designs doesn't suit you, we've got lots more dog pins! Come take a look! If you still don't see the breed you're looking for, give us a call or send e-mail from our dog jewelry page. We have so many, we're still putting them online! We've been doing business on the Internet since 1996 to support the conservation of endangered tapirs.

We're real, we're safe, we're friendly, we're reliable, and we answer our phones or return your e-mail. If in doubt, check us out! Call today . . . toll free (888) 325-3179. We're on the River Walk in Astoria, Oregon. If you're in the area, please stop in and see all of our wonderful stuffed animals, pins, and a surprising array of realistic plastic animals, too! We'd love to meet you!

More dog pins!

Yes! I've put even more dog pins online in our Tapir and Friends Wildlife World web store. We have so many dog breeds available, there are still a lot more to come. If you don't see the breed you want in our outstanding dog jewelry section, please call us toll free at 888-325-3179 or send e-mail. We'll let you know what's in stock. You can also read over the list posted here. This probably covers most of them, but it may not be complete. Shown above is one of our Great Dane styles and of course a yellow Labrador.

Fantasy dragon jewelry

This dragon jewelry is a bit out of our ordinary realm - not that we don't like dragons, but so far we've specialized in real animal themes and recently we've branched out into ethnic art of South America. With the inclusion of ethnic art and imagination, we could easily get into dragons in the near future. For now, this is only our second fantasy dragon, and it came to us with the collection of wildlife pins on consignment from the artist. The pin seen in this photo can be found in our Tapir's World Gift Shop via this link. Our other dragon is a Peeper Keeper eyeglass holder. See it here!

Dog jewelry pin page coming along

Today I've been working on the dog pin page. I transferred the 8 dogs I already had on the multi-species pin page to the new dog pin page, and then added a bunch more. There are 20 dogs on the site now, and 9 more to go that are already scanned. I like this Australian cattle dog! Actually, they're all very nice, but this guy caught my fancy.

Painted butterfly and dragonfly jewelry, presented by Yours Truly, certified geek

I love messing with web pages, although sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming trying to get a large number of gift shop items organized and figuring out how the pages will make some kind of sense. I've been doing that today, starting with the butterfly and insect painted animal pins. We have SO many styles of painted animal pins. They are gorgeous and fun, and I want to get all of them online in the next few weeks. Our older site optimizes better than the new one (longevity does make a difference online!) so even though I can put them up and organize them faster on the new site, they're just not being found. I thought I'd try to bring some of that organization back to the original site and get them up where people are at least visiting the pages in larger numbers. I really, really want to get this done, it just takes forever. I wish I had more time to devote to this one project. To be honest, I can say that about all my projects, but this one is on the front burner today.

Another purpose for the revamped page is that I finally got a BlackBerry and surfed the web with it the other day for the very first time. It's VERY cool! I love the way phone calls and e-mail links tend to merge. Either or. The PDA doesn't care. You want to call? OK. You want to e-mail? No problem! I also see some of the issues with reading web pages on a hand-held device, and I'm attempting to build in some assistance for phone surfers. I'm making links that take you easily back to the top of the page, and I'm beginning to eliminate the endless sidebar menus that you have to scroll through to get to the meat of the content. These can be overlooked on a computer, but not on a hand-held. I'm starting to discover some of the web-surfing shortcuts when using the BlackBerry, but there's no point in making a web page harder than it needs to be. (I know, I know - one should be using CSS, but I don't find it that easy or that much fun, so I'm still working around it for the most part. I did try it. I just don't care for it. My old-code pages actually work much better and faster on a BlackBerry than I feared they would - better than this blog, for instance.) And. Cleaning up the pages is nice for the design, too. It's funny. It seems the form follows function thing works here, too. "Necessity," or at least preference for making the pages easier to use is helping me see the logical way to clean up some of the junk I've been wanting to streamline. What could be better?

Running zebra hand-painted animal jewelry!

This engaging running zebra pin is only one of hundreds of pieces of our hand-painted animal jewelry that gallop, fly, swim, scuttle, slither, and wriggle. Come check them out in and Friends online gift shop! We have dog jewelry, bird jewelry, reptiles, frogs, cats and kittens, sea animals, sharks, fish, horses and ponies, farm animals, insects, butterflies, dinosaurs and a unicorn! All are made and painted in the USA!

Blue whale jewelry - it's so blue!

This lovely realistic blue whale pin or oversized tie tack is now online on our new animal jewelry web site. Take a look. There is so much to see with over 170 pins now online and more coming soon. In fact, I'm going to work on another five to ten as soon as I post this blog entry. A lot of the whale's friends are also newly online. Check 'em out, OK?

Animal jewelry: yes, we have T-Rex dinosaur jewelry in two colors

We have three dinosaur pins left in stock! We have two green t-rex pins and one red pin. You can order them by phone or e-mail or check out our site. You can call us toll free at (888) 325-3179 or send e-mail. These hand-painted pins are $29.00 each. Read more about this US-based artist's work on the painted animal jewelry page of our web site.

Beautiful climbing tree frog jewelry - pins, tie tacks - striking, gorgeous, durable, and only $29.00 each

Come take a look at our stunning frog jewelry! In addition to the pieces shown here, we also have the same style of frog in dark green with small round black spots - looking something like a toad. The frogs are cast in pewter and painted by hand. The finish is hard and durable. They will not scratch. Each frog has two pins on the back that attach with pinch-clasps so the frog will not shift position once you've attached it to your lapel, hat or tie. Come see and order our frogs online! Some of these species are poison frogs from South America, one is a red-eyed tree frog, one is a strawberry poison frog. One or two are harlequins. All are absolutely gorgeous! Click on the photo for a larger view.

Back in stock and gorgeous as ever: Lobster jewelry in two styles

Some of our favorite animal jewelry in Tapir and Friends are these two brilliantly colored and detailed lobsters! Click the image for a larger view and check them out on our painted animal jewelry Web site!