Day 19 - Shiny Shell Earings

I love these certain shells that I love. I call them shiny shells. They are Jingle Shells aka Mermaid Toenails. They come in a variety of colors and are a type of clam shell. I've found them in orange, yellow and white. They are small colorful and shiny. Who doesn't like shiny things?

I took a small drill bit in a pin vice and drilled holes in them. I opened the the loop at the end of a set of hook earrings and put them though the hole in the shell...closed the loop back up and you got a pair of shell earrings.

Day 18 - Findings at the Beach

The snow is gone but the wind has come and made it very cold. Staying inside today hubby found an box of wonderful things that we found at the beach. Some shiny rocks, (the kids love those shiny things and they have an infatuation with rocks,) some nice big pieces of sea glass, (do you smell the smoke from the wheels turning in my head?) and of course a ton more shell. I probably have enough shells to open a small shell shop by the seashore...hehe. No all kidding a side I really do. I have boxes and containers and baskets and bottles full of shells...One day I'll have to take some pictures of some of the collection. I think its all that wanting to live on the beach that's got me hording away all of the wonderful treasures I find when I'm there.

I have got to find a way to put all these shells to use. Snail shells are a popular one. I have some of those and conch shells, tons of little itty bitty conch shells. I have a conch shell that's so tiny it will sit on the tip of a pencil. Don't ask how I found that one because I'd swear I was blind but I have it somewhere in one of the containers.

Want to hear a funny story...well not so funny for me...One of my stays at the beach I found this really nice conch shell. It was big, beautiful and all intact. I spotted it floating in on the waves just out a few feet in the water. I immediately went for it. Turning it over to make sure no snail was in there and it was all clear. I was in my glory. I had found the best shell ever. It had a few barnacles on it but those would be no problem to get off. I put it in my bucket along with all the other things the kids had collected and brought it back to the house. Later that night I wanted to clean off all the days findings so I put a pot of water on the stove to boil. Once boiling I added the shells to clean them. The first one I cleaned off was my beautiful conch. I scraped the barnacles off the outside and when to go scrape the sand out of the inside and make sure it was clean all the way down in. Sticking a skewer in the shell it felt like there it wasn't going in as far as it should. There was something stopping it. A big barnacle I figured. Oh did I figure wrong. I was all like "What the hell's stuck up there?" I started jabbing and shaking. I gave it a nice hard shake and this cooked pink hermit crab flew out and into the sink. I screamed and dropped the shell, jumped back about ten feet from where the poor hermit crab lay dead in the sink. My hubby started laughing at me. I was in hysterics. I felt so bad. I swear I checked that shell good before I put it in the bucket...no crab ever poked out at any point in time. I still feel bad to this day for killing the poor, poor hermit crab. Lesson learned...poke shells good first or give them time before you stick them in your bucket.

So with all those shells I figured I'd start off and use a snail shell to start and do some sculpting. I haven't done any sculpting in a long time. It's been a few years. I took some Super Sculpey and made a snail in his shell. I'll back him tomorrow and maybe paint him.

Day 3 - Shell and Crystal Bookmark

So far so good. I'm three for three on my new years resolutions. I'm three days in and made something each day. I didn't think I was going to get it done today as I had so much going on but I pulled it off.

Today I made a bookmark from a shepard's hook, some Swarovski crystals and sea shells that I collected at the beach years ago. We must have collected hundreds if not thousands of these tiny shells while on vacation years ago. I figured it was about time to put them to good use. I went though the shells and found ones that had natural holes in them, I didn't want to have to drill or break the shells. I wanted them as I found them. I put a jump ring though each of them. These jump rings are copper core with a silver colored finish on them. They are left overs that I made way way back when I was making chain-mail. I stung the jump rings together so that they formed a cascade of shells. At that point in time it felt like something was missing. I then took some Swarovski crystals in different shades of blue and clear placed them on a head pin and wrapped the wire at the top after creating the loop. I placed them on the jump rings that the sea shells were stung on.

The result was this: Seashell and Swarovski Crystal Shepards Hook Bookmark

Easter and the beach

We have a tradition for Easter of a huge breakfast with lots of fun involved.  First off everyone has to design and color their own eggs, yes that includes the adults too. We break out the canyons, color and dye the eggs.

There are pumpkin eggs, pirate eggs, hulk eggs, spider man eggs, and tye dye eggs. Each different each belonging to someone.  Now on Easter the tradition is to crack them against one another to see who the winner is, the winner is the one with the last unbroken egg. If you look at an egg you will notice it's oval in shape. To crack eggs you must hit fat end to fat end. Some one holds their fat end of the egg up with their hands around the egg and the other person hold their fat end down. The one holding fat end down smacks the other egg lightly to see who's cracks. I, alas, did not win this year though I did have a long run with out my egg breaking.

That is just part of the Easter tradition we have. The "Easter Bunny" hides plastic eggs filled with candy all over the living room and the kids get to find them. It usually works out that there are more hidden than found. I'm still not quite sure where they disappear.

Then there is breakfast. It's all about the breakfast.

Borscht, with Easter kielbasa, rye bread, horseradish and egg, potato pancakes with sour cream or apple sauce. A feast that will fill you up for the day. Or so I thought till my youngest was complaining of starvation 2 hours later.

That's really all there is, no big dinner or nothing, usually a movie during the day. Today was so nice outside (76° F) we decided to go to the beach. I was surprised how many people there were there today, it being Easter and all. We got down there and all there was was fog. Really bad fog, I'm talking Stephen King kind of fog. You couldn't seen very far at all. The car in the picture was about 100 ft from us.  Though we were lucky, the sun pushed though and lifted most of it. There was some haze off the ocean.
  I even got around to building a nice tiny little sand castle, with a mote, mote monster, bridge and enchanted forest. Hehe. If you look hard yo might see it.
 It's the first time I've ever been to the beach on Easter. I still remember snow on Easter and it usually being cold.  It made it a really great day!