wieszczy

I wanna say I was still in highschool so around 8-10ish yrs ago a mother possum passed away in my yard. My mom and I rescued her babies and months later we rediscovered her body. (my mom moved her under a section of the fence and I guess we just. forgot she was there? which is so sad but I promise I'm doing her justice)

I was able to degrease the skull but after that I couldn't really do much. I didn't have any space to work on this hobby and while my family respects that I'm interested in more "macabre" things, they still think it's gross. I kept the skull in a bucket in the garage for years because I didn't want to hear comments about it while working and I wasn't sure what to do after the degreasing step >.<

I'm much more knowledgeable now and I've recently moved. I'm finally able to give her some love!

Step 1 was to glue her teeth back in. Many had fallen out over time. I used mod podge because I don't plan on putting her in water (which would dissolve the glue), it dries clear, and it blends in with the bone when dry. I'm not a huge mod podge fan personally. I dislike that it dries slow and takes three weeks to "cure" so it's got a perpetual sticky texture.

I'm resting the skull on a wrist rest to stabilize it. Since it's so old there's no connective tissue left and the bone segments were very loose.

Step 2 was to glue all the connective bone seams and glue inside the holes of the skull. I'm doing this mainly for stability. I don't want the skull to fall apart or break. I actually found an old dermestid beetle nest inside the brain/nasal cavity that I had to clean out. Thank u beetles. I used a chip clip to hold certain segments in place as well.

And that was pretty much it. I plan on getting some museum wax to attach the jaw pieces to the skull & then I'll work on making a display for her