Shells in the fall

I made it to the beach the other day, FINALLY! It had been far too long. It was a GORGEOUS day at Wrightsville Beach. The last time I was there, the beach was littered with these beautiful jellyfish.. my boyfriend and I had the bright idea of bringing one home to see if we could preserve it someway.. it would have been a nice addition to our seashell/sea specimen collection... alas, its really hard to preserve jellies, so that was a major fail. But the idea was nice and it would have looked lovely! But the day before yesterday provided some cool stuff.. lots of swirlies which I need because Ive been using up most of my good swirlies for some projects.. lots of olives which is weird because there was just one spot where there were tons of them.. found a big rusty bolt that I think is really neat. Heres a looksy at our adventure.

Lovely afternoon

This is one of hundreds of jellyfish that were washed up

Found a live starfish in the water.. I have been finding more and more of them as of late

Look at all those shell bits! 

Olives & scallops & babyears!

Swirlies & augers & even 2 shark teeth found by my boyfriend..I wish it was me who found them!

The big rusty bolt that washed up on Wrightsville Beach.. I dont know why but I really like this guy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is my little mirror covered in swirlies.. this was my first attempt at making a shell mirror and I was fairly pleased with how it turned out.

 

This is what I've dreamed of doing with my swirles.. making one giant swirly out of swirlies... I absolutely love it!!

So thats what I've been up to.. I cant wait til I can go back out to the beach and see what I can find..

Shell display

Well I havent been able to go shelling due to the weather not cooperating.. So I have been focusing my efforts on displaying my shell collection. I really love my living room. Its a work in progress, but so far it is coming right along. I love finding little display boxes to put shells in and have been very lucky as of late.. there is an awesome little resale shop that always provides me with incredible finds. Heres a gander at what I have been working on..

I particularly love the spice rack that was my parents when they first married.. I put different types of shells in each one and I love the way it turned out!

Got this thing at my resale store. It was gold and cheap.. so spray painted it and put some shells in it and now it looks lovely on my wall!

My boyfriend made this shelf for me to go above the TV and display some of our larger shells

I bought this awesome old box the other day. Not sure exactly how Im going to use it but I cant wait to play with it!

Heres another shot of it. Right now I just stashed all my silver shells in there just to to put them some where... but Im still not entirely sure how I am going to use it.. if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!

Not a great picture, but I just wanted to show this old printers drawer that I got and absolutely cannot wait to turn it into a beautiful shell display. That will be quite a project but I look forward to it! Its so awesome!

 

 

So thats what I've been up to! Hooray for shells!

Silver Shells!

Ive been dying to try this out.. spray painting some shells silver! I love the way they turned out! This is going to make for some good decorating.. and just in time for Christmas!

I especially love how the silver sea whip turned out!

I was trying to spray one type of each shell so I could get a feel for how they would look

Not bad! My first jar of silver seashells! I love them.

I think spray painted silver seashells make for fine decorating and I plan to do LOTS more!

And hopefully I will still have some regular shells left after I run out of spray paint!

Starfish & Sea Urchins!

Went to Kure Beach for some fun in the sun.. and fun it was! It was quite a day. My boyfriend and I couldn't stop finding all sorts of treasures, most notably lots of starfish and sea urchins! But there were other random cool things, like a piece of some kind of animals jaw, a giant crab claw, fossilized barnacles, plenty of scallops, and lots of sea sponge and sea whip type stuff. Lots of good stuff for decorating! Here is a gander:

Look at all that good stuff and such pretty colors!

You can see some of the bones in this one

The fossilized barnacles! There is an awesome swirlie in there! I did not find this unfortunately so no bragging rights for me.. but luckily I get to look at it everyday!

The other side of fossilized barnacles

All our starfish and sea urchins cleaned and drying!

Great shelling day!

Great day.. just sad its over.. until the next time..

Hurricane Irene pictures

Here are some pictures from when Irene finally passed us and they allowed people back on Wrightsville Beach to see what she left for us.. This was my first time ever going to the beach after a Hurricane but I have often dreamed of the awesome things I would find if I ever got the chance!

Look at all of that debris!!!

A horseshoe crab covered in barnacles washed up

I finally noticed that large group of people way out in the distance and soon realized that was where the jackpot was!

Starfish

 
 

That pool didnt use to be there!