Archive for Parades
Making Seashell Costumes For The Sanibel Parade 2012
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Happy 4th Of July! It was a beautiful day for the Junonia Jalopy to make an appearance in the Sanibel parade. And even more exciting was that our friends Susan (soul sister), Berringer, Jacob and Daron wanted to walk along side Clark and me in the Junonia Jalopy to show off their love for shelling too!
So Susan and I had a blast making seashell costumes…
We started by painting seashell designs on foam core board then cutting them out…
We made these to fit as a sandwich board type costume so we needed to make signs for the back side attached with ribbon (we found aqua ribbon with white stitching!) … so we made iLoveShelling signs and embellished them with a few shells of course…
We even found aqua buckets to hold our shells that we handed out to the crowd. How cute are they!!
Since the theme was “Sanibel #1 Vacation Destination” from the Frommer’s rating in this year, we decided to remind everybody that Sanibel is #1 Shelling Destination too!
Here are some other fantastic floats in the Sanibel parade like the Captiva Island Yacht Club float…
Cip’s restaurant…
I loooove this float by Tammie’s Total Care!
Take a look at this huge castle on Congress Jewelers float…
Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum had their float sporting their Great Cowrie Roundup…
Here’s Doc Ford’s float…
I wish I could have seen all of the floats because I heard there were so many creative ideas and lots of fun. Thank you Sharon from Cottages to Castles for sending me this photo of Susan walking the parade in her SAND DOLLAR costume… So cute!
We think we handed out around 700 shells this year. Now you know what we do with all of those shells we collect! Okay, did you notice something about the ALPHABET CONE Daron had on? Do you see letters?
Thanks Captain Brian for sending this last photo! Happy 4th!
Cutest Golf Cart Parade Ever
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This is yet another reason why I love living in paradise. We dress up for the holidays in shorts and flip flops and decorate golf carts as our floats for the Christmas parade. It’s cute, quirky and very Captiva.
John (AKA Elvis) and Denice Beggs of Royal Shell Real Estate celebrated with a “Blue Christmas”…
These gals were the fan favorites in their Naughty and Nice Pink Flamingo golf cart…
Can you believe there is a golf cart inside Kingfisher Vacations‘ Mighty Reindeer?
Look how adorable!
VIP Real Estate turned their whole golf cart into Santa himself…
Did you know that Rudolph The Red Nose Flamingo lives in Captiva?
…or did you know that snow flakes could get this big on Captiva?
I’m sure its no surprise there are mermaids on Captiva…
And Elves!
Captiva Kayak Company was one of the big winners of the best float. Cute!
For me, one of the best parts of the parade was before it even started. As we pulled the Junonia Jalopy into the lineup, we met iLoveShelling buddies Diane and Steve from Connecticut. It was so nice to meet yall! Hope you find lots of treasure this week.
The oh-so-cute Raccoon Captiva Critter Christmas float was on the move…
Les Pendleton of American Realty Of Captiva (they made the Raccoon float above!) filmed the whole parade. So you get to see it too! Happy Holidays from the Captiva Holiday Village Golf Cart Parade, thanks to Les!
While we were having all this fun at the parade, Donnie Benton was busy shelling Blind Pass and this is what he found.
Nice, huh? But look at this SCOTCH BONNET!
And he found this freakish FIGHTING CONCH. Very cool.
Over on West Gulf Drive, Gail and Alicia found a MacDaddy 12 inch HORSE CONCH. And it was Gail’s birthday…that’s a great birthday gift from the sea! What a weekend.
Happy 4th Of July, Sanibel Island Style
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Happy Independence Day, y’all! This year’s theme for the Sanibel 4th Of July Parade was “Shellabration” …. so we couldn’t miss out on a shelling theme, now could we?
We plopped that big honkin JUNONIA right on top of our cart, added some shell garland, mixed in our patriotic colors then revved up the “Junonia Jalopy” and headed to Periwinkle Way to shellebrate our country.
Oh yeah, AND we threw out over 500 shells (CONCHS, WHELKS, OLIVES, MUREXES, COCKLES, etc) to the crowds along the streets. Everybody loved getting real shells!
There were 55 other “floats” that were having just as much fun as we were…
Shell Museum
Sanibel Sea School
Cips Sanibel parade 2011
The “Shellabration” theme was to kick off the 75th Sanibel Shell Fair and Show that will be held March 1-3, 2012. Yep! That’s SEVENTY FIVE years the Shell Fair has been on Sanibel so this next one will be a doozy. This is the fabulous poster designed by local artist Pam Brodersen.
Speaking of Pam Brodersen, she sent me pictures she took of our cart in the parade today. Thanks Pam!
The Junonia Jalopy is taking a short rest to take us on to the next stop…. Fireworks!
Let’s Shellebrate July 4th Sanibel Style
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Everybody loves a parade. And in Sanibel, everybody loves shells. So we don’t want to miss the Sanibel Shellabration 4th of July Parade with the theme of SHELLS (!) to honor the up coming 75th Annual Sanibel Shell Fair and Show in March. So we’re dusting off the iLoveShelling.com Shell Mobile to share in the fun.
This is what our “float” looked like for the Captiva Holiday Village parade in December last year….
Clark at the helm of the iLS Shell Mobile
So, of course, we’d like to make even more of a splash with a seashells in i Love Shelling style. So if you are in the area on July 4th and want to walk, ride a bike or ride in your own golf cart with us…come and join us!
PS- I promise, I will get back to showing you some beach pictures and pics of a few dear shelling sisters I met as well. I just had to tell you what I’ve been up to….. getting ready for a parade!
Captiva Holiday Village Golf Cart Parade
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iLoveShelling Captiva golf cart parade "float"
The First Annual Captiva Holiday Village golf cart parade was a HUGE success! Captiva has really pulled together this holiday to make this season so crazy fun. There were over 30 golf carts decorated to the nines for the holidays and iLoveShelling was right there in the midst of it all covered with SAND DOLLARS, STARFISH, SCALLOP SHELLS, CONCHS and a kooky humongo JUNONIA right smack on top.
Painting a Junonia
I started with a big sheet of plywood, cut it to the shape of the junonia then started painting the spots. Okay, I didn’t find the junonia I used as the model, we bought it years ago…. as you might already know, I’m still looking, and looking and looking for my very own real junonia.
Seashell Christmas tree on golf cart
We borrowed a golf cart from our friends Paul and Vera who helped us dress it up with a Christmas tree, lots of green garland and aqua gift boxes tied with gold ribbon. I wrapped the tree and the green garland with the seashells that I strung last week on my post Seashell Christmas then put the final touch of the Santa hat (lined with shells of course) on the monster JUNONIA.
Our float team Paul Vera, me and Clark
I even trimmed my Santa hat with shells.
Seashell Santa hat
Then we were off to the races!
Here comes the junonia
Our float with Clark at the helm
Wanna see the other carts??? They were outstanding! Here are a few photos but don’t miss the video at the end thanks to Les Pendleton from American Realty of Captiva…
Golf cart parade winners!
My girlfriends won a trophy for best golf cart! Congratulations Shirley, Janice, Bonnie, Liddy, Merrill and Nanelle!
Parade winner
Congratulations to American Realty ! They won a trophy for best cart too.
Yolo Holiday cart
Yolo Watersport‘s cart was really cute.
Kingfisher Vacations holiday cart
I also thought Kingfisher Vacations had a show stopping cart. Great job!
Jensen's golf cart after dark
Thank you to Denice Beggs (go, girl!) of Beggs Realtors and Paul McCarthy of Captiva Cruises for spear heading Captiva Holiday Village parade. Such a fun event for all of us!
I guess we have to step it up for next year if we want to win a prize. We even gave the judges a “bribe” of the sand dollar cookies and that still didn’t work 
LOL. I’m hearing buzz around town that people are already brainstorming for next years decorations. Wow! Okay, I think we’ll need help. If you’ll be in the area next year, come help and cheer us on.
Captiva Luminary
After the parade, luminary bags line the village streets for a cozy holiday glow. The businesses brighten with Christmas lights to serve free beverages and goodies for good tidings and cheer . It’s so beautiful! Clark and I set up a table at The Mucky Duck (Thank you Victor!) as the sun was setting on the beach right behind us. We gave away lots of seashells and over 100 sand dollar cookies. The cookies were a big hit!
