Archive for Decorate with shells
2011 Top 10 i Love Shelling Posts
Posted by: | CommentsMy Top 10 Most Fave Posts Of 2011!
Happy New Year’s Eve! It’s been an amazing year on the beach so I thought I’d look back on all of my favorite posts of 2011. I realized not all of my favorite days were completely about seashells. Some of my favorite days of 2011 have been about the wildlife I’ve experienced because of my obsession (ha!) passion for shelling. So I’m starting with #10 then counting down to my number ONE favorite post. I bet you guess what that will be- heehee. Click on each title or photo to read each post…
#10
Tips To Decorate Your Home with Seashells
#9
Seashells Swarm The Shell Fair
#8
Sorting Seashells For The Holidays
#7
#6
Top 10 Reasons Why I Love The Beach
#5
Road Trip For Seashells In The Florida Keys
#4
Splish Splash Sanibel Dolphins Having a Blast
#3
An Octopus Hatching Babies Video
#2
Roseate Spoonbills By Sanibel Causeway Video
#1 Favorite !!!!! (Of Course, right?!!!)
There’s A New Super Sheller In Town!
These were my favorites, what was your fave iLoveShelling post of 2011?
Shelling The Walkways
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Have you ever looked through the seashells in the walkways and driveways of homes and hotels on Sanibel? When I first starting coming to Sanibel, I loved shelling in driveways. It cracked me up to find whole shells mixed in with the crushed pieces. We’ve been doing a few projects around the house the last few weeks so one of the projects was to freshen up the crushed shell in the walkway to the house. Clark bought a few of these bags…
So today I opened a bag and spread it along the front porch. An ALPHABET CONE! LOL It was just sittin there pretty as a picture. I laughed out loud, ran to get my camera then opened another bag and this rolled out…
Too funny! I spread it more to find these…
So of course, the next thing on my mind was “I’m going to find a JUNONIA in here!” So I opened the third bag to find these. Ha! It’s not a JUNONIA but it looks like the two on the left are some sort of VOLUTES . There’s part of a COWRIE in there too.
This is where I was spreading these shells. I’ve always told you that I collect those big pieces of old WHELKS and CONCHS that nobody else wants. Now you can see that I line them around the beds of my gardens. I love to be surrounded by shells!
PS- Both sides of Blind Pass have been looking a little bare the last few days. Mid island still seems to be the best but very picked over. I havent been to the lighthouse since the weekend but I heard there was a very big TULIP that was found there so I guess that’s still pretty good shelling there. Maybe I’ll see you there!
Tips For Decorating Your Yard With Seashells
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Decorating your yard with seashells is just as much fun as decorating the inside of your home with shells. I showed you how our friends Dick and Mary decorated the inside of their house (Tips To Decorate Your Home With Seashells) but now, hold on to your boot straps because the outside of their home is just as fabulous.
They pick up all of those big beautifully broken WHELKS and CONCHS to fill their outdoor urns and pots to decorate their poolside patio. They look maaaw-vilous! That’s exactly why we pick them up too and call them our “yard shells”.
You don’t have to always put plants into your “planters”. You don’t have to water shells! Well, except if you want to make a vase out of a HORSE CONCH.
And you don’t always have to put tools in the toolbox. Put seashells here too.
Okay, are you ready to see the “seashell garden”? It is a 22 feet long area filled with shells they found on Sanibel. I can’t even imagine how many WHELKS, CONCHS, OLIVES…. oh you name it, it’s in there.
Here’s a view looking straight down and I’d say this was a typical view of the different shells. Unbelievable, right?
They dry the shells after they wash them outside in a somewhat shaded area. This was a new batch they found.
In the last month, we have had an unusual amount of MANGROVE SEED PODS wash up on the beach. Mary decided to bring a few home to see if they would root. Three weeks later, they are sprouting.
Now let’s move into the garage where they store and organize all of the other shells and beach bling they find before it gets placed in the yard or house. Only in my dreams, could I be this organized. And before you ask… Yes, this fine cabinet is in their garage.
Their sand is even organized.
They both were laughing and couldn’t wait to show me this jar of beach combing oddities. Yep, they found a kid’s retainer in the surf and picked up to add to their collection of oddities. LOL
I hope you enjoyed the visit with Dick and Mary as much as I did and hopefully you got a few more ideas of what to do with your shells you find. In case you missed Part One showing the inside of their house… CLICK HERE
Tips To Decorate Your Home With Seashells
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“What do you do with all of the seashells you collect?” Haven’t you been asked that question every time you tell someone you love to collect shells? I’ve been asked countless times and I’ve asked other shellers so I’m guilty as well. I think we all are interested in getting ideas of what to do with them from other people who love what we love… seashells.
Our friends Dick and Mary love shelling and love their seashells and beach bling surrounding them in their beautiful home. Join me as I show you their seashell arrangements… with the help from kitty Fatima.
This is a perfect example of what I love about Dick and Mary in the photo above…. there are no rules. They find so many beautiful shells on the beach but they also love to buy shells if they see one that strikes their fancy and they don’t mind mixing them. Most of those shells in the bowl (that Fatima is admiring) were found on the beach by either Dick or Mary but some, as Mary says with a laugh “I found that one too…. in a store”.
When it comes to ALPHABET CONES, they don’t have to buy a single one. They found all of the ones in the glass vessel on Sanibel and Captiva. Wow! Piling the same shell in any type of vessel is my favorite way to display my shells as well. They found all of these baby HORSE CONCHS too. Wouldn’t you love a bowl full of candy by your bedside table?
They framed their oddity treasures in a shadowbox.
They framed some of their best shells to make a wall collage in the hallway.
This is the top of the very first shell mirror Mary made but the mirror is so big, I couldn’t get the whole thing in the photo. Again, she mixed bought shells with beach found shells.
Here’s the bottom of another shell mirror…
They displayed their “knobless wonder” HORSE CONCH (the spire doesn’t have those pronounced bumps normal horsies do) right at the front entrance with a striking vase of PAPER FIGS.
knobless wonder with figs
They call this little heart the WENTLETRAP trap…
This wire bowl has a beach found key chain, pottery pieces, sea glass, driftwood and other beach bling along with a bought object d’ art. See? Mix and match, just do it.
Mary was a doll maker a number of years ago so on the shelves of her glass door cabinets she displays the things she loves mixed together.
Of course there are OLIVE shells in the olive dish.
Remember I showed you the OYSTER shell mirror on my post Ordinary Oyster Turn Extraordinary? Mary made a plant stand out of them.
I still have so much to show you! Like how they use their shells in the garden and by the pool and how they organize all of their shells. But, oh my. I’ve run out of time so I have to break this post into several so… hang on! You won’t believe your eyes at how many more shells they have and what they do with them. So for Part Two… CLICK HERE
Ordinary Oysters Turn Extraordinary
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Isn’t it amazing that something this beautiful can be made from a shell that is so ordinary and well, let’s be honest… an OYSTER SHELL isn’t that pretty.
But arrange them all together like this, you get this absolutely gorgeous mirror that I saw on a visit to Virginia Beach. This has been stuck in my head for the past few weeks as well as the pair of OYSTER SHELL candlesticks sitting on a mantel a few few steps away.
I was reminded of these pieces of art after seeing oodles of EASTERN OYSTER shells at Barefoot Beach the day I hung out shelling with Carla and Kelly. Here’s what I found that day…
I’ve been seeing more of them this week on Sanibel on the West Gulf Drive beaches as well but not nearly as many as on Barefoot.
Maybe we’ll all look at these shells a little closer at our next oyster roast we go to, right? They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes for whatever project you might think of doing…
Cone Queen, Sanibel Seeker and Golfer Of The Sea
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All eleven of these ALPHABET CONES were found within four days of shelling this week along Sanibel’s West Gulf Drive by Wendy from West Palm Beach, FL. Talk about an eye for shelling! And she even found another one that wasn’t in that bunch. I’d say she is the CONE QUEEN.
She found these FLORIDA CONES and COLORFUL MOON SHELLS too!
But even when she isn’t lucky enough to find all of these CONE shells, she is still having fun picking up other shells with her friends to use as embellishments. Love this- they strung these shells around her straw hat. So cute!
Yes, that hat is awfully cute, but these hats just stole my heart! LaDonna, Carla and Belinda were all sporting their iLoveShelling caps when I saw them on the same beach. Weehooo! Shelling Sistahs!
We had the best time chatting it up when I spotted something pretty nice in Shelling Sistah Carla’s shell bag (you might recognize her name from her comments- Carla Knotts!). She found an excellent LIGHTNING WHELK.
She said she was happy they were already finding lots of shells but even happier just be on Sanibel. It holds a special place in her heart and I could see she wanted to capture every second on that beach and never let it go. She’s not just a shell seeker but a Sanibel seeker.
Then I ran into our local friends Dick and Mary…..
They look like they have golf clubs, don’t they? Belinda said Dick looked like he was the “Golfer of the Sea”. It would be appropriate since Clark plays golf with him every Sunday and both admitted they were better shellers than golfers.
The Golfer of the Sea found a pretty nice SHARK’S EYE….
I was tickled when they introduced me to Ernest Hemingway! Errrr, well, he looks like Papa anyway….. and has even won a look-a-like contest in Key West.
Tom, Linda, Dick and Mary
It was an amazing day yesterday off beach access #7 to find so many shells but the best thing was to meet many new friends and to see a few old ones too (and I dont mean in age! LOL).
Fighting Conchs
Red True Tulip
