Crafts

I love crafts. I did a lot of crafts with my kids and I did a lot on my own. Some I sold, some I created for my own use and some I did as gifts. When my children were young we had a "Barney Box" which was their craft box. I filled it with paints, glue, markers, papers, containers, craft sticks, pipe cleaners, buttons, glitter and all kinds of other random items that had craft potential. Sometimes we did projects together out of it. Often I just turned them loose on the carport and watched what they came up with.  My sidewalks were often decorated with chalk drawings. My house was and still is decorated with a lot of my children's art. I am now adding my grandson's art to my collection.

SHELL ART

I love going to the beach and collecting shells. I have a LOT of shell. Really. Buckets of shells. Here are some ideas of what to do with the shells you collected on your beach trip.
Picture frame
If you go to the beach, bring home a ziplock of sand for this project! You will need:
a picture frame with a flat wide front
sand
regular white glue
shells
beach photo
paint (optional)

Mix enough glue in with some sand to make a thick paste. Spread this paste over the picture frame. You can leave it smooth or comb it to look like water marks in the sand. Let this dry completely. This may take a day or two. Once dry you can paint it a color or leave it natural. If you paint the sand, let it dry before the next step. Glue an assortment of shells onto the frame. You can use hot glue but I just used the regular glue.(more kid friendly if this is a family project) With frame laying flat, put a large dot of glue and set your shell in it making sure the shell is making good contact with the glue. With the scallop type shells, you may want to turn bottom side up, fill with glue and let dry (ahead of time) so you have more surface area in contact with the frame when you glue it down. Leave frame flat until the glue dries completely. Finish off by putting a picture from your beach trip in your cool new frame!
As you can see from my frame, all of the shells don't have to be perfect. Use whatever you and the kids found and thought was cool. If you have lots of shells or really large shells, this project works well for a mirror frame also.

Bulk Shells
As I have said, I have lots of shells. I didn't bring them home to just let them sit in the attic. My pool area is decorated with a variety of containers filled with shells. Transparent container are great because you can see all of the shells. I also have a miniature boat filled with shell. Be creative and get those treasures on display!

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