u/beaniesandbuds

Buttered inside, Dukes Mayo on the outside

The Sea Purse is the seed of the plant called Dioclea Reflexa , which originally grows in a wide variety of areas, but are most commonly found in Africa, Asia and South America.

There is some debate about the exact specifics of the different varieties found in different locations, but I'm fairly sure the one I have is an African variety.

These seeds are called "Sea Beans" because they can travel thousands of miles across the ocean, due to their boyancy and extremely hard shells. They can spend years floating in the ocean, and can reliably be found on beaches all along the Southern Coastline of North America.

This one was purchased from a shop in South Padre Island, TX, and came prepolished, but there are shops online selling "Sea Beans" for reasonable prices.

There are also a multitude of other varieties of seeds under the umbrella term "Sea Bean". The website linked below is the best source of information about these seeds that I have come across:

https://seabean.com/guide/index.htm

I'm curious if anyone else does this.

I work from home and have a very lax schedule, so i'll usually just toss all my Wenwan stuff in a little box and carry it from my office to the kitchen, bedroom, etc. when I take a break.

I also love having everything in an easy to go spot, so if I want to change up the texture / size / shape of what i'm playing with it's all right there and easy to grab.

Was making some beads and realized it was 3 months since I started this pair!

They've definitely slowed down a lot on the color change, but the sound has became a lot less dull and has a much sharper ring to it. You used to be able to hear when the shell scraped against the inlay, but now it just sounds glassy no matter which parts of the walnut are contacting eachother.

Slow and steady!

Wenwan is essentially an ancient art from mainland China where you polish and play with natural items over many years, eventually developing a beautiful patina and significant color change over time.

From top-to-bottom, left-to-right:

3-Faced Yunnan Iron Walnuts w/ faux Emerald Inlay

4-towers Walnuts

Lions Head Walnuts

Texas Mountain Laurel (Mescal Bean) Seed Pod

Hulu Gourd

5-Mukhi Rudraksha Bracelet

Texas Mountain Laurel Bracelet

Here is an update on my Texas Mountain Laurel bracelet!

I've been wearing this for around 2 weeks, and you can see in the picture that, compared to the raw seeds, my bracelet has a much more polished look!

I used seeds from a year ago, that were still on the tree, so the seeds are a darker red than the ones /u/Beanie262 has. Part of the experiment is to see if Beanie's beads end up darkening over time as well, or if they remain a lighter color over time.

If anyone else wants to join in on the project, send me a DM and we can work something out!

About a month ago I decided to pick up a 3 pack of Hulu Gourds from Miensweethouse on Etsy, and they finally got delivered today!

I must say, compared to all my other Wenwan items, they are very light weight coming in at only 8.5 to 9.5 grams each!

They have a bery smooth, almost paper-y feel to them, and the seeds inside have a nice rattle when shaken. I know that most people leave the stem intact, but personally I didn't enjoy the stem so I trimmed and filed it to round it out.

Very happy with my order, and i'm quite excited to see how they change over time!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4403323021/natural-dried-mini-gourds-feng-shui?ref=share\_ios\_native\_control

I bought this box off of Amazon and i'm quite happy with how it stores all my Wenwan items!

It's originally a Mens Watch Box (8 slots) and only cost around $25 here in the US. I've been looking for something that I could upgrade my storage solution and this has turned out perfect for my needs!

I was talking in the comments of another post, and it got me thinking about non-traditional methods of playing with your Wenwan Walnuts.

This is a method that I do, while laying on my side in bed, it works finger dexterity and other muscles compared to normal rolling, as well as being super satisfying once you get in the groove, and are capable of getting a good "flow" going where the walnuts never touch.

Please feel free to post some videos or pictures of your abnormal play styles!

In advance, I want to say that I am sorry for the all of the spam about these non-traditional Wenwan, i'm just excited to share my findings.

From here on out, i'll try to keep it to 15 or 30 day update periods, so i'm not flooding the subreddit with non-traditional posts.

That being said, I am so excited by the emergence of these "eye shaped" markings that have appeared after a few days of polishing, where I filed down the stems to make them more comfortable to play.

So far, they seem VERY thirsty, soaking up any and all hand oils or sweat, and the color isn't changimg much past the initial darkening from the first play. I'll upload a picture of the shell cross-section, but these are EXTREMELY thick shelled pods, similar to a gourd, and need multiple hits from a steel framing hammer to reliably crack into.

I'm confidant saying they're a reliably tough shell to wenwan for years, and i'm excited to see how they progress. Similar to my understanding of Hu Lu Gourd Wenwan, these respond better to a polishing glove, instead of the standard brush used for Wenwan Walnuts.

The experiments shall continue, and i'll keep you all updated, but with less frequent posts to keep the spam to a minimum!

Finally got some high quality elastic in, so I got my Texas Mountain Laurel seeds all strung up! Looks amazing in my opinion, and the vibrant red is a great contrast with my dark brown Rudraksha Bracelet and dark brown watch strap.

Very curious to see how the patina changes on these, I assume it will be an extremely slow process since the shells are so smooth and incredibly hard, so sweat and oils will likely be very slow to penetrate into them.

I drilled 20 seeds total, but only needed to use 18 for this bracelet, which allowed me to select only the darkest blood-red seeds to use for this one. Die to the extremely toxic nature of the seeds, the landscaping crew for my Apartment complex actually came over (to ask what the heck I was doing) and said they appreciate the help, since they apparently have to clean them all up so that dogs and children don't accidentally eat them!

Looking forward to harvesting more of the seeds, and eventually making more projects from them.

Approximately 10 days ago, being the incredibly foolish individual I am, I left my Walnuts in my pants pocket after taking my dog on her morning walk. Long story short, when searching for them an hour later, they were unfortunately already washed in the washing machine.

The laundry detergent did it's job well, too well, and more or less stripped off the entire patina... or so I thought. It has since been 10 days, and fortunately no permanent damage has been done, and while they looked pretty bleak immediately after being washed, they seem to have retained a bit more of the internal oil than I originally assumed... they seem to be about 80% of the way back to their previous patina!

Admittedly, I have been much more attentive to them, and have been brushing at least twice as much as I was previously... but they seem to be coming back stronger than ever!

I have noticed an "oil spot" appear, since they were laundered, but all in all that is a pretty minor defect that will eventually disappear once the rest of the patina developes further.

Pic 1: immediately after being found in the washer

Pic's 2 & 3 : current state of the patina

Pic 4: oil spot that has since developed

After letting the seeds dry in the sun for a week or so, I got around to drilling them out to make beads. I used a dremel tool with a thin diamond tip bit, and after struggling in an attempt to drill them "top to bottom" the shells were just too hard and too slick to get the drill bit started...

so after a few minutes of cursing under my breath, I ended up having to start drilling through the "eye" of the seed ,and had much more success. Personally i'm very happy with how they turned out, and once my cordage comes in tomorrow i'll string them up and start the long patina process!

Went by the tree I found and grabbed a few more pods, this was the only completely dry pod that was 3 segments or longer... got it cleaned up, wxcited to start playing with it!

First picture is before brushing, had a sort of velvety powdery texture, second picture is after a bit of brushing with a stiff nylon brush.

Very excited to see how the patina progresses on this pod, and i'll start drilling the seeds i've harvested tomorrow to make a Radraksha bracelet from.