A Celebration of 'Gecko-ness'

I am sure you know by now that hubby and I are nuts about geckos.
My friend Jane Eborall is designing a gecko in tatting for me and was asking me should her design have skinnier legs, longer legs or what.
Well geckos come in the most extraordinary shapes and sizes so hers is going to be a sort of generic gecko that can be tweaked in to a number of different specific geckos.

When you are gecko mad you begin to see geckos everywhere you go and I don't mean living ones. It seems that the whole world has a love affair with the cuteness of the gecko and so it is easy to find a gecko momento wherever you go.

Not that we actively go out looking for them they seem to find us!! as well as family and friends finding them the perfect gift.

So this article is a celebration of some of our Gecko collection.

The smallest is a tiny beaded gecko I made, just under 4cm he would make a lovely earring. the pattern is in 'Beadlings How to Make Beaded Creatures and Creations' a Klutz book.



Another beaded gecko is a key ring that I came across in Germany, here he is together with the little one to show the size (about 10cm). A very clever design of beads and wire.



The largest ones I have are a pair of cast iron geckos at 30cm which looked great in the garden until they showed signs of rust and had to take up residence on a windowsill.



They came from the gecko meeting in Germany that we go to every year along with is my latest aquisition, another large metal one with an eyelet underneath so he can be hung on a wall.



Almost every market stall wherever we go has paperweight geckos, brightly coloured materials filled with sand. We have these too but they seem to have gone walkabout.
A variation on this theme was given to me by a friend and is a stuffed gecko sewn onto a zipped purse.



Of course I know you all will want to know what is so special about geckos apart from their cuteness. The answer lies in their feet.
A gecko can run up a vertical sheet of glass holding on by means of it's 'sticky' foot pads. But they aren't really sticky at all, the underside is covered in millions of tiny hairs, down to molecular level and they interact with the walking surface, kind of like 'velcro' except that they can release a lot easier.
There is a lot of research ongoing to try to find out exactly how this works and if it can be of use to mankind.

Geckos are the only vertebrates that can bend their toes upwards as well as downwards.
This is a great advantage if they are walking over a dusty surface and don't want to get dust between the tiny hairs they can curl their toes upwards as they walk to keep the pads of the ground.

The ability to walk up a shiny surface enables them to walk along shiny leaves or up a tree with very smooth bark. A great help in running away from predators.

For realism it's hard to beat the rubberised gecko here, you can almost see those toes curling up.



Now for something unique, this is a handpainted gecko mug commissioned in England by my son for his dad, geckos solve a lot of birthday problems.



Here is my gecko plate that I painted at my daughters hen party last year, it looked wonderful until it had an accident in the firing, still you can't win them all!




Cute! yes we do cute too. Here is my favorite fridge magnet, a little gecko with magnets in his feet, he is a real poser and lives on the cooker hood at the moment, tho we never know where he will turn up next.


This tiny little resin gecko is sitting on a real nut and I think was made in South America.




Finally some more unusual hand made geckos, staring with a hand carved painted gecko from Mauritius This is characteristic of the brightly coloured 'day geckos' found on the island.


A beautifully carved specimen, 21 cm long, look at his lovely eyes.




Saving the best 'til last, here is a recent gift from an Australian friend.




12 cm long and made from 'Fimo'clay isn't he exquisite. he is the work of Jon Anderson of Fimocreations, go and have a look at his work.

Hope you enjoyed seeing these, you should see the T-shirt collection!!!!!!!!!!