Vacation Souvenirs

The girls and I took a mini vacation last week, spending a few days with my parents at their beach condo in Florida. One of Brigid's favorite things to do at the beach is to hunt for seashells, and even though I have to keep telling her she needs to at least limit herself to whole seashells, and not just various seashell pieces, we always come home with buckets of shells at the end of every trip. And I'm kind of running out of places to put some of them...

(And here's where I have to admit...I like seashell hunting, too. I am part of the problem.)

I have several large glass containers filled with sand and shells in various rooms of my house. I have a bowl full of sand dollar pieces in my dining room. I have driftwood scattered here and there. I look like I'm trying to pretend I live at the beach when I live in the middle of the mountains. (Ok, that part might be true...) But WE KEEP BRINGING MORE HOME.

Since I don't really have anywhere else to put more shells, I told Brigid that last week's haul was all hers, to do with what she wanted. The results:

A necklace and bracelet that she 'designed' herself from a couple of the shells that had holes in them already...

Two picture frames that I bought for $1/each so she could paint and glue whatever seashells she wanted to on them (the heart one she says she made for Steve and I, 'Because I love you guys, mommy!', and the other one will have a picture of her from this trip in it, once I actually get around to getting a picture of her from this trip out of my phone and into print.)...

And then, because I expected her to use a lot more shells on the picture frames (Seriously, who knew she'd be so artistic about placing certain shells in specific spots on the frames? I expected 99% of the wood to be covered in shells, not paint.), we had to find a place to dump the leftovers...

That one was a recycled idea we've used before, obviously. I told you the kid likes her seashells.

The best part? Other than actually spending time at the beach, that is? For a few dollars, we killed an afternoon with craft projects and created a couple of reminders of a fun vacation along the way. Everybody wins!

(Except for when I have to dust this stuff. That just sucks.)