Summertime Crafting

So it's officially summertime in New York City. I love the beach, don't you? Sure I don't live near the beautiful blue water beaches of Puerto Rico or the white sandy beaches of the Bahamas, but I love the ocean nevertheless. The ocean is so restoring and inspiring to me. I remember as a kid I used to love going to the Jersey shore and just staring at the ocean waves. I still do that to this day. And then of course you can walk along the boardwalk and have a beer while the little one devours ice cream cone after ice cream cone.
I've been inspired to do so many crafty things lately! I was at my mother in law's house and saw these cute earrings someone made for her out of sea shells. So that got me thinking about all the fun things you can do with shells.
When you're at the beach it's a good idea to walk along the shore line and just collect little sea shells, rocks and bits of sand glass. It's fun and you can ask your little ones to help!
The first idea I had involved making some sand glass pendants. It's so easy!

These pendants are simply made with some beading wire that's wrapped around it and a loop is made for the chain. Cute, right? And super simple!

A good thing to invest in is a jewelry making drill. Fiskars makes a good one, as pictured below.

This drill is cool because you can use it to drill a hole into the sand glass if you want to. You can decoupage an image onto the glass and then drill a hole for a chain or even make earrings out of it.

Then there are the endless possibilities you will have with sea shells. OMG, seriously. You could probably write a book on all the things that are possible to make with sea shells.

My favorite thing to create is this beautiful wreath! How beautiful.
All you have to do is get yourself a foam wreath and come armed with a glue gun and lots of glue sticks. Then you can simply glue them onto your foam wreath, making sure that everything is covered in shells. Be sure to arrange them in a pretty manner of course, and you can overlap them too.
Awesome!

The Craftaholic
Sweet Buddha Designs