A Lil' Beach at Home

Recently my family (my family being my husband, daughter, sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and brother) took a family vacation to Cancun. The trip was wonderful. So much fun, sun(burns) lots of memories, lots of souveniors! One thing that my daughter, Sophia loved most was collecting seashells from the beach. I guess that would be the most exciting thing for a two-year-old. Looking back, even though it was just over a month ago, it was very exciting for all of us!

Of course in Cancun we stayed in the 'hotel zone' which meant the ocean was just yards away from us all the time. We spent many hours sitting in the sand, the water coming in and surrounding us and hearing Sophia exlaim "Find me another one!" My sister, Ann and I couldn't keep up with her demand! My husband, Channa and brother-in-law, Shaun took finding shells to an exstream, and purchased goggles and were digging up conk shells! We left a large collection on a chair because, well frankly none of us wanted to pay the extra fees to lug them all home!

Channa giving Sophia seashells

We brought home a large variety of smaller shells (including tiny ones that Sophia refers to as her "baby shells") but once we got home I kept thinking..."What are we going to do with these?" I thought about keeping them in a wonderfully painted trinket box we bought in Cancun...but it wasn't big enough. So while surfing the net I saw someone had attached them to a large wooden letter. PERFECT!

At Hobby Lobby I picked up a large wooden "C" ($1.99) to represent our last name, some more hot glue sticks and got to work!

I sprayed it with some prime spray paint just to make it all white...

then I placed all the shells on the C the best I could and started gluing!

The finished product came out well! I'm glad we collected a variety of shells. I hung it up in our bathroom (the walls are turquoise) so it is like a reminder of the beach every day! It didn't cost much at all (unless you factor in the actual cost of the vacation..oy!) but now we have a visual reminder rather than just sitting them in a jar on a shelf. And the left over shells Sophia still puts in her pocket like money :)