What to do with my teeth?

February 23, 2009 4:03 PM

I would like to have my extracted wisdom teeth made into...something.

I found this earlier AskMe post but I am not at all handy, myself. I was thinking earrings or a zipper pull, but am open to suggestions. Can you recommend a craftsperson who could help?

posted by Morrigan to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (25 answers total)

Best answer: I can indeed. My friend Liz just had them made. Honestly, they are pretty tremendous.
posted by snizz at 4:07 PM on February 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

In junior high, I gave my best friend my extracted teeth in a candy wrapper as a prank. To my surprise, she came to school the next day with a necklace she'd made out of them. One tooth was drilled through with a handheld drill, but she hurt herself in the process, so she hot-glued the rest to a piece of yarn. That thing held up for about ten years before it was lost. So, there you go. Hot glue.
posted by katillathehun at 4:11 PM on February 23, 2009

Cufflinks! I always wanted to make mine into cufflinks (not that I ever *wear* cufflinks...) but I lost track of the actual teeth.
posted by clarahamster at 4:21 PM on February 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Snizz's link was interesting but now I am a little squicked about handing over my teeth to someone who will cast spells on them! (For the record, I've got mine sitting around here waiting to be made into something, too!) :)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 4:36 PM on February 23, 2009

My uncle is a dentist with an odd sense of humor (dont they all have those, though?) My grandma, his mother, comes down to get dental work done by him for free, and he had to extract a tooth one time, so for her 80th birthday he had the tooth set into a ring. She thought it was disgusting. Everyone else in the family thought it was funny. It looked pretty cool, it was set like a classic engagement ring. Apparently he just took it to a jeweler.

For more unique sorts of things, etsy is the place to look. You can request specific items and have craftspeople vie for your business.

Depending on your mode of dress, working real teeth into some sort of sculpted skull brooch might look really cool, and then you could pin it anywhere. On a lapel, on a hat, on a sash... Something that really says "yes, I am wearing teeth."
posted by Mizu at 4:43 PM on February 23, 2009

My roommate kept them around and would periodically take a drink of something red, have someone fake punch her in the jaw and spit them out into her hand. Theater major. The fun on that gag didn't run out for about 3 months.

My vote is for some little tooth people, ala Bent Objects. I'm not sure this guy would be willing to make them for you, but he periodically has contests to have his viewers pick an object. He usually wraps the objects with wire in a way that doesn't require drilling.
posted by fontophilic at 4:57 PM on February 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Have they already been extracted, and if so, are they intact? I ask only because it would suck to plan something awesome only to have your oral surgeon tell you (as mine did) that:
1) they had to be sawed up into chunks to get them out of your jaw and
2) you're not allowed to keep them for some ridiculous "medical waste hazard" reason

Can you tell I'm still bitter? I AM TOTALLY STILL BITTER.

Anyway, I wanted to make all 4 of mine into a crazy-looking knuckleduster ring.
posted by elizardbits at 5:00 PM on February 23, 2009 [9 favorites]

Cuff links, for the literary allusions.

Of course, you will have to have proper cuffs, but I like to think that one side effect of all this economic misery will be a return to stylish dress in the men folk.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:12 PM on February 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

In The Great Gatsby, the character Meyer Wolfhseim had cufflinks made of teeth. They were made out of molars (pretty grim stuff), but wisdom teeth would make good ones as well. Certainly remarkable ones.
posted by mr_felix_t_cat at 5:41 PM on February 23, 2009

"Have they already been extracted, and if so, are they intact? I ask only because it would suck to plan something awesome only to have your oral surgeon tell you (as mine did) that [...] you're not allowed to keep them for some ridiculous "medical waste hazard" reason"

This is what happened to me when my wisdom teeth came out, so yes, please bear that in mind. Seems a bizarre, not entirely believable excuse (somewhere I'm imagining a black market that deals exclusively in the selling of peoples extracted wisdom teeth) but then I'm not a dentist. So if the dentist wants to claim that me being allowed to take my wisdom teeth out into the general population will cause some kind of worldwide pandemic, I'll take him at his word.

That said, turning them into dice would be wicked awesome. You'd almost be able to guarantee no-one would ever touch your lucky dice when you weren't looking.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:54 PM on February 23, 2009

I was thinking earrings

If your earholes are large enough gauge, couldn't you just stick the roots through the holes? That'd be kinda cool, I have to admit. Even cooler, if one of the teeth had a filling or a gold cap even. Just a thought.
posted by jonmc at 6:20 PM on February 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Have it painted with your portrait perhaps? Might make for more wearable jewelry.
posted by lizbunny at 6:23 PM on February 23, 2009

How 'bout popping them into a set of Maraccas?
posted by Muirwylde at 6:26 PM on February 23, 2009

Oooh ooh!!! you could get them bronzed! If you don't like bronze, there are other places out there that will do gold or silver too.
posted by lizbunny at 6:35 PM on February 23, 2009

I used a shallow bracelet like this http://www.klutz.com/catalog/product/2315 (for make-your-own photo bracelets) and filled the "dishes" with sculpey. Then I gently pressed in the teeth and baked the whole thing for however long the Sculpey package said. It came out disturbing and pretty damn cool. I used dog teeth, as I work at an animal hospital and they are easy to swipe after extractions.
posted by juniper at 6:48 PM on February 23, 2009

I make pit fired masks as a hobby. I still have my extracted wisdom teeth. Three of the four are fully intact. I've been wanting to put them in a mask, but am unsure if they will survive the firing process. I know bone and teeth are the last to burn up, so think I'll be fine, but that's what I intend to try to do with mine someday.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:02 PM on February 23, 2009

I had high hopes for my wisdom teeth, too, so I'm insanely jealous of you who have them out intact (like elizardbits, mine had to be sawed out in chunks :( )

My non-jewelry idea was googly eyes and tiny santa hats on each tooth in order to give out 4 toothy little xmas ornaments to the people who helped me while i was sick.

*sniffle*
*sad again*
posted by NikitaNikita at 7:06 PM on February 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

cjorgensen! Those masks are amazing! Maybe you could make a place for the teeth to fit into the mask and add them after firing?
posted by The Light Fantastic at 7:07 PM on February 23, 2009

Create scrimshaw designs on them.
posted by terranova at 7:15 PM on February 23, 2009

I wanted to do this, but the roots were twisted and the surgeon broke the teeth extracting them. Boo. So consult the surgeon before making elaborate plans.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:15 PM on February 23, 2009

Tooth Fairies - literally!
posted by peagood at 8:29 PM on February 23, 2009

(I heard that) the guy who did some mosaics at the University of Louisville School of Law put his grandkids' baby teeth in the mosaics. They're pretty good sized mosaics, though, so it's not something that pops right out at you. And I personally never went and looked to see if that could be confirmed. But yeah, pieces in mosaics.
posted by dilettante at 3:35 AM on February 24, 2009

No further ideas on what to do with them, I have to warn you that drilling a hole through tooth will fill air with the smell of burning human bone. It is nasty.
posted by Free word order! at 7:35 AM on February 24, 2009

Many American dentists (dunno about other places) misunderstand the regulations and guidelines to mean they can't give you your extracted teeth. You can, in fact, keep your teeth. Just talk to the dentist beforehand to make sure they don't toss them in with the other biological waste, and maybe bring your own container to put them in.

Hm... maybe embed 'em in acrylic for a key chain?
posted by zennie at 9:21 AM on February 24, 2009

A friend's mother sewed her gallstones into a cross-stitch sampler and hung it on the wall in their hallway. Hers was a question mark, but with four teeth maybe you could make... a square? Perhaps some non-tooth embellishment would be in order.
posted by vytae at 1:32 PM on February 24, 2009