Archive for Worm Shell
How To Make A Worm Shell Frame
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I love making shell crafts! It’s been a few months since I’ve had a shell project to get my hands on … so the last two days I’ve spent being very excited to be actually making a shell frame as a gift to a special couple. If you don’t already know what my long time fave shell is… it’s the WORM SHELL! And I loooove making things with WORM SHELLS because no two are alike and they are just so stinkin’ whimsical they make me laugh. The thing is… I don’t find them often any more so when we find even one on the beach, it’s such a happy day.
The ones that have a funny sideways twist? Even better!
Then there are the days when I feel like the stars and planets have lined up in perfect harmony when I find this many WORM SHELLS in an afternoon…
After soaking them in a bucket of 1/4 bleach to water over night, I rinse them off with fresh water then lay them out to dry. Okay, I’m gonna tell the truth… some times I’ve left them in longer than overnight… errrr….. some times I forget I have them soaking in the bucket but remember after a week…okay, okay!… maybe 2 weeks later or longer. But by being so, ummm, “scatter brained”, I now realize it doesn’t hurt the WORM SHELLS. If they are greenish or grungy white, it just makes them sparkly white. If they are the tan/brown color ones, they stay that pretty color but just brighten up. They aren’t needy… just another reason they are my favorite shells!
So I took some of my cleaned, sorted WORMIES and started hot glueing them to a painted white frame I scuffed up with sandpaper. My project was under way!
To me it’s like doing a shell puzzle or shell mosaic. You have to keep trying different shells that will fit in the right place to fill the blank space. And I get to go shelling all over again…searching, searching for the perfect treasure. I hot glue one at a time, hold it until it sets up, then move to the other side to make sure it dries completely before I disturb the glue.
When the frame is completely filled with shells, I feel happy to have accomplished such a fun project but even more, I am heartfelt to be able to share this with the people I made it for.
It was a “Welcome to Florida” gift for Cheri and “Hubby” (her nickname for him on her blog) from Virginia who just bought a home in Fort Myers! Cheri is the blogger behind the Shelllady so after meeting them years ago on the beach, I knew they have always dreamed of having a home near Sanibel. Their dream has come true!
We all know Super Sheller Clark is good at finding shells, he’s also good at finding homes too. Since he helped them buy their new place (which within 4 hours already has a seashell theme), last night we shellebrated with them for now being new Florida residents. We went to our favorite Sanibel restaurant… Traders! Most birthdays and get-togethers we celebrate at Traders, but this was a biggie. Of course it was a delicious meal but it was very special to be able to share in the day of such a big part of their lives.
Thank you so much Cheri and Jimmy for letting Clark and me be part of this amazing decision! Congratshellations!
A Boatload of Awesome Shellers to Cayo Costa
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When you are about to get on a boat to go to a secluded island for a morning of shelling with a bunch of people who all LOVE SHELLING as much Shelling Sistahs Marilyn and Diane from Chicago…
And avid shellers Jessica (cute aqua backpack!) and Ben from Texas… It’s gonna be a good day!
As soon as I saw Rhonda (next photo) I had to tell her how cute her necklace was. She told me she made it…. then gave it to me off her neck! OMG What? Thank you! But really, this is how sweet she is….She would have given it to the first person who had liked it that much…
You know how I know this? Because as we all were waiting to get on the boat, Rachael had commented on her necklace too and she gave Rachael this bracelet she made. She has a heart of gold!
Needless to say, our iLoveShelling cruise to Cayo Costa on Saturday was a success. It was a perfect day. Awesome people, clear skies, calm water, gorgeous weather, aqua water…. and shells!
As soon as we got off the boat on Cayo Costa, lots of people scattered to their favorite areas to look for shells. Some went straight to the water and some went straight to the shell piles on the beach.
Bill C. saw my photo above of the shellers above and said it reminded him of the painting “The Gleaners”. LOL It does! I just got a kick out of it so I had to share it with you too. I borrowed this image of Millet’s 1857 oil painting from Wikipedia to show the similarity…
I loooove to show people how to spot the BABY’S EARS and the mini shells while Clark shows the rest of the group he finds the OLIVES, CONCHS and the bigger shells. Here I am pointing out the treasures that hide in the beautiful fallen tree roots…
There were hundreds of live CLOUDY PERIWINKLES!
Sally from Sarasota was going for the minis…
She was ready with her tupperware container. She has a nice WORMIE and ANGEL WING too.
She also found beautiful CANCELATE SEMELES. This is the only beach I ever see them…
Okay one more thing… she found the biggest stinkin TUSK SHELL I’ve ever seen…
Look at all of these white shell bags filled with the bigger shells like OLIVES, SUNRAY VENUSES, WHELKS, CONCHS, WORM ROCK and CORAL!
These were all found by this adorable family that just moved to Sanibel… Berkely, Matt, Loulie and Landon.
These were their faves out of their shell bags…
I was thrilled at how many people wanted to share their favorite treasure with the group. So many of my faves too! BABY’S EARS, WORMIES, SAND DOLLARS, OLIVES, VENUS SUNRAYS and ANGEL WINGS
Okay, I have to confess. I get overwhelmed when I meet so many awesome people that love this stuff as much as I do. I just want to drink it all in …so I forget to get names and I forget to take pictures of everything. I want to enjoy the moment so I want to apologize to these amazing folks that let me photograph your hands (in the photo above) but I didnt get all of your names. I know Rachael and Johnnie but if any of yall want to comment… I’d love to add your names. Awwww. I feel so badly … but look how cute they are!
I almost just started calling everybody “Sue” and “Jim” (yall know who you are- heehee). Let me assure you, nobody was worried was I was calling them. I do know that we all had a fabulous morning exploring the beautiful island of Cayo Costa finding treasures and making new shelling friends. It is soooo much fun. Thanks to Captiva Cruises’ Captain Brian for the safe, smooth ride and Captain Yogi for the funny stories!
If you want to join me, Clark (Oops! see? I didn’t even get a picture of Clark working his shelling backhoe!), and a boatload of other shellers just like you… join us!
Shelling Day Trip To Lovers Key State Park
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I felt like if was raining ROSE PETAL TELLINS at Lovers Key State Park this week.
We pulled up to one of the little islands and saw the sand dotted with pink. We didn’t find many pairs of ROSE PETAL TELLINS but it was so much fun seeing so many singles…
The ANGEL WINGS were out by the dozens as well! I still havent had time to soak them overnight in a bleach solution (1/8 bleach to water) to start cleaning them but I wanted to show you how many we found…
We found the smaller FALSE ANGEL WINGS too. Clark found most of the sweet doubles…
And WORMIES!
Johnny Rescue and Jane wanted to take their new boat “Not His” out for the maiden voyage so they asked Clark and me if we wanted to tag along to Lovers Key. Errrr…. Well I should say “Jane’s new boat” hence the name “Not His”. LOL Even though it was a little chilly, of course we wanted to go. We bundled up and headed out. Here’e Jane in her new Mako…
We don’t get out to the beaches of Lovers Key often but we were pleasantly surprised how many shells and bling there was…
It’s only about 30 minutes from Sanibel to get to the island. I’m not sure about the parking or main beach since we went by boat but I’m sure we will be taking another trip back there soon by car to find out about those details.
But until then… how about a little CYBERSHELLING! Find your own ANGEL WINGS (you know I’ll never be able to write “Angel wing” any more without checking the dang spelling- ha!). Anyway, all along this whole stretch of beach, this was a typical site. Happy CYBERSHELLING! Click to enlarge…
PS- Hope to see you at the Sanibel Shell Fair and Show the next few days!
Hurricane Sandy Sprinkles Seashells On Sanibel
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Our Sanibel and Captiva beaches were pounded by 4 to 6 foot waves for three days because of high northwest winds from Hurricane Sandy so I assumed we would have lots of shells at Blind Pass Sunday morning at low tide. I was wrong… so I kept moving.
Gulf Side City Park showed promise!
It’s always a good sign to see PEN SHELLS! They get washed up first in a good storm so you know that there are better collectable shells on the way. I was lucky to see a SEA WHIP caught in this group of PEN SHELLS. I love these purple ones.
After walking east only 1/4 mile, we found a nice shell pile!
My first find… a beautiful dark WORMIE!
And a candy corn for Halloween. See it trying to hide?
Then I found a TULIP, WHELK and CONCH…
I saw Kim from Michigan find a gorgeous TRUE TULIP rolling in the surf.
Are you ready to go shelling? Okay, then… Let’s go CYBER SHELLING! Click on the next photo to enlarge this random photo I took of the shell pile. Notice how many beautiful SCALLOPS there are…
I think today will be even better but I’ll never know until I get there. As we all know, the beach changes every single day but I think Blind Pass will take another day to load up with shells so I’m headed back to one of Sanibel’s mid island beaches…. like Gulf Side City Park again.
Hurricane Sandy may be bringing us a few new shells to get excited about but we are very worried about all of you and our families that are up north bracing for Sandy and the “Super Storm” (as they are calling it). Please be safe!
Seashells On Cloud Nine
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The shelling was excellent all weekend after the storm early last week. Not only was I tickled to find this large TRUE TULIP, the FLAT SCALLOPS, HORSIES, the WORMIE and a piece of aqua SEA GLASS, I think finding 2 pieces of JUNONIA and 2 pieces of LION’S PAW is what turbo charged me to run from beach to beach to search the clues for the unbroken loot. The after-burners went into high gear. I know you already heard I hit gold with my JUNONIA and LION’S PAW but now they are all cleaned up so I have to show them just one more time (I know, I know… just humor me 
)….
Ahhhhh. Two out of The Elite Three. So for a while, I’m not coming down from being on cloud nine.
I saw lots of other shellers and friends enjoying the gifts of the sea too. Sunrise shellers Robert and Eileen…
Robertfound a LION’S PAW too! It has some barnacles but who cares! It is a huge whole one and will clean up nicely I’m sure.
The locals were out playing on the beach too. I ran into my friend Mary (Captiva) …
She found an ALPHABET CONE and a bright orange HORSE CONCH. Candy!
More of my buddies! I found Betsy and Sherrill sittin’ n siftin’ through another big shell pile…
King and Queen of this shell mountain, Kathy and Tony had it all to themselves…
Other than shells, the storm brought in lots of other Beach Bling too. One of my favorites being pieces of CORAL.
I still have more photos of cool stuff I found on the beaches..but not the time to show them all again. We have Hurricane Rina out in the Caribbean which may turn towards Florida from Mexico so we have to keep an eye out to see what she does. I just hope everybody is safe from this Category 2 Hurricane headed for Cancun, Cozumel then turning towards Cuba. When everybody is safe, then we can think about the shells she might produce. I promise, I’ll catch up tomorrow and keep you updated.
When The Seashells Come Rolling In
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The islands get happy. The strong winds and rain that belted the islands the past few days are paying off with seashells! The shells are rolling in and piling up all along the beaches of Captiva. The first person I saw this morning was Michelle from Toronto with her 2 huge LIGHTNING WHELKS…
Look at this huge ALPHABET CONE and KING’S CROWN in her shell jug….
Then I heard a “Woohoo!” from somebody. It was Lois from PA …
with a perfectly beautiful SCOTCH BONNET in her hand…
Okay, this is really cool. Get this….She told me she has been shelling for 40 years and that she has kept a life list of shells she has found. She has 347 different types of shells on her life list. You hear that yall? You can start counting your shell finds to have a shell life list of your own if you want.
Charity from Ohio was finding lots of WHELKS…
Get a load of this big honkin chunk-a CORAL she found too…
Joyce from Long Island, NY shows us her FLORIDA CONE and big shell bag filled with goodies.
Look at Loretta from Texas with her great piece of WORM ROCK (and her cutie iLoveShelling hat!!!) …
photo by Diana Taylor
I saw great shells along every stretch of beach on Captiva today and heard that someone found a nice size LION’S PAW right in front of Captiva Island Yacht Club. I also heard the Sanibel was rocking too!
I haven’t even gone through all of my photos or much less taken photos of my own finds from today but I will hopefully get to that tomorrow….if I’m not too busy finding new treasures! Enjoy the shelling whether you are on the coast or doing a little fun cybershelling.
