After 15 years of faithful service, my right big toenail was damaged and ended up falling out (well... to tell you the truth I pulled it out). I couldnt just be content with throwing out the toenail, I had to do something with it. So I thought to myself, "what is a simple project I can do with a dead toenail which wont have everyone i know thinking i am some kind of sadistic maniac.
I decided that I wanted to mount it inside a clear plastic dome on a peice of wood with a comemorative plate on the front of it.

Video of me ripping the toenail out with tweezers... Surprisingly didnt hurt

Step 1: In the Beginning...

Okay, my aim was to make this for nothing using stuff that anyone could make with stuff around their house and i did just that.

**What You Need**

Materials
- Item to mount (in my case, a toenail)
- Seethrough plastic salt / pepper shaker
- Scrap of coathanger wire (or any rigid but workable wire)
- Scrap of pine
- Scrap of aluminium (could be any metal really)

Tools
- Pliers
- Hammer
- Nails
- Superglue (gods gift to man!)
- Varnish / wood stain (optional but makes the wooden base look so much better)
- Chisel (to put the slope on the front of the pine scrap
- Tape
- Engraver

Once you have all of those together, we are ready to begin!

Pictured is the tools used to make the upper half of the mount, the base comes in a moment

Step 2: Prepping the Salt Shaker Dome

Ok, well, all saltshakers, without exception have a little hole in the top of them but for this function, it is not needed and it stands the chance to left moisture in which could condense on the inside so seal the hole with superglue first.

Lay the shaker on its side to let the superglue dry otherwise it would probably drip.

Step 3: Now, the Toenail

This step is pretty simple and probably doesnt need a whole lot of explanation. Basically, just bend the top of your wire over about 45 degrees to the perfect "display angle"

Then, superglue your display object to the wire.

Wait till the superglue is dry before proceeding to the next step.

Step 4: Mounting the Toenail to the Base

Next bend the other end of the coathanger wire 90 degrees so that it will sit flat on the base of the salt shaker.

Then, use a bit of tape to hold the display object vertical before supergluing it into place.

When the glue is dry, you can put put the salt shaker lid over the base and you now have the dome enclosure. Now on to the base.

Step 5: The Wooden Base

I got a little slack with pictures on this step so bear with me.
First, I got the scrap of pine I talked about earlier (it is just a 3 inch long scrap of builders 2x4).
Now, take the chisel (I used a cold chisel but I couldnt find a regular one) and form a 45 degree plane across the front and sand it flat.

Then use varnish or woodstain to give it a polished look.

While I was waiting for the varnish to dry, I got the old scrap of aluminium and engraved "-My Toenail - 1991 - 2007" on it.

I then nailed this plate onto the front plane of the wooden block.

Step 6: Getting It All Together.

Now take the wooden base and simply glue the salt shaker in place

Step 7: All Done

And there you have it.
Please dont flame me about the toenail, I am not enouraging that you keep old toenail fragments but I was merely using the toenail as an example of how to mount small objects inside a clear plastic dome.

This technique has many other uses such as trophy making, An interesting photo frame alternative, maybe even a cluster of LEDs for an interesting light feature, or a vessel to hold cremated ashes in, anything as a matter of fact.

Step 8: The Finished Product and My Future Projects

This was just a fun project done in a few minutes to showcase and glorify my old tonail which died when a 10 lb peice of 100 year old redwood fell on it during a building project.
That building project is one of the next instructables I will be posting, basically, the building project is to take an unused open concreted space under my house and to build in and make it inhabitable. It is a large scale project and has hit a financial wall at the moment but that project will be uploaded shortly.

Thankyou for reading and hopefully enjoying my first instructable :)