Could I unmount a gem, put leaves behind it, then mount it again?? Maybe not, looks like they have opaque backs mostly
Prototype attempt :
Struggled with putting a back on/mounting it onto something because most ways I could think of to stick a back on would also stick down the tea leaves. And it seems important that they be able to move, or there’d be no reading to be done. I could always just mount a piece with a one-time tea leaf reading, but that would be more ornamental and would lose the divination functionality.
How do ashes reliquaries get mounted? Are the ashes free to move around in those? In mourning jewellery with hair, the hair isn’t free to move.
In the pet reliquaries above, the ashes are clearly free moving, and mounted behind an outwardly convex lens. I guess they lay the lens face down with the ashes in, and fit the mount over it? Not sure about whether the @margaretcross ones are free moving, but the gem doesn’t look concave so maybe the ashes are put in the mount and the gem put on top and the mount closed round it? Visual ruminations in sketchbook. I guess I need some kind of malleable sheet metal, or maybe some metalworking tools.
http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/treasuresofheaven/relics/Fatimid-Flask-Reliquary.php
Could do something like a tiny glass bottle with leaves in, with a few in to be viewed from underneath. Or insert a white disc halfway down so that the bottle can be turned to read the leaves. Or put a lot of different leaves in the bottle, and then it’s to be read from the side.
Floating lockets!!!
to the touch 