rose petal tellin shells

My heart is all warm and shelly after receiving 3 boxes of seashells this week to reimburse the shells used in making the hearts and flowers for Shell Love Bug. I’m pink with gratitude to Melanie Herrin who sent many gorgeous ROSE PETAL TELLINS. I know these precious shells aren’t easily found and I would have never asked for them if I wasn’t in a pinch (as I explained  in my blog post Seashell Repurposing). So I’m grateful she sent them to help finish creating Shell Love Bug. Omigosh and she sent other shells I needed to replace … FLORIDA SPINY JEWELBOXES and SAILORS EARS. Melanie also made a JINGLE SHELL bracelet to be sold at the next Sanibel Shell Festival in March to raise money for the Sanibel Community House- so very sweet! Melanie made a few shell creations for the Shell Love Bug box as well. What a “sweetheart”.

shipped seashell gifts

Sweet, Sweet Marie McDermed. She and her sister have kept me going through the years, for sure. Marie sent a huuuuge bag of SAILORS EARS that will replace all of the ones used from the inventory of the SCA Shellcrafters.

shipped seashells

And she took so much care in separating ( left valves from rights valves!) and bagging so many different color COQUINAS to replace what was used in the hearts. Marie, I’m a lucky girl to know you.

coquina gift

Linda Gammon is so clever! I couldn’t help but smile seeing sooooo many beautiful coquinas for Shell Love Bug. I smiled at feeling grateful but I also had to smile seeing the clever packaging in which she thought to send her sorted COQUINAS.

shipped coquinas

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to these dear givers who donated these shells to help with finishing putting together this shell car. I had the idea of making a mobile seashell art piece of the first annual National Seashell Day so I turned a car into a Sailors Valentine… but I didn’t have all the total 20,000 shells in the Rambo Shellaboratory. I’m grateful to the folks who donated shells (and helped glue shells) while creating Shell Love Bug last month and to these lovely contributors Melanie, Marie and Linda who have made it easier for me to get things back in order. I can’t thank you enough!!

coquina shell hearts-1

I’ve also been scouring the beaches looking for purple COQUINAS this week and I had lots of great luck so I think that’ll do it for replacing shells. Yay!

purple coquinas-1