How to: Make a wind chime w/Sea Shells

This how-to post is brought to you buy Mother Nature! yay.

So if you've been reading my blog for a little bit then you know that we regularly head to the beach. And when doing so one of our traditions is to search for sea-shells.

So over the past couple months ive been putting the shells we've collected into a large glass jar and with Summer right around the corner {for us at least} I decided to make something with said sea shells {say that one 3 times fast....}.

One of them fancy seashell wind chime type things you see in all the beachy type stores!

It was really simple actually. Just gather your shells, a drill and a piece of wood.

The piece of wood is for when you drill the hole into the shell. You want the shell on top of the wood to not only support the shell {the wood is soft} but in case your drill bit goes a little to far, you won't damage what's underneath except the piece of scrap wood you used.

ALSO, I want to note that you don't need to live by a beach to create one of these. If you don't have beach shells readily available, they typically sell them at the dollar stores and all craft stores.

Lay your shell 'upside down' on the piece of wood and then slowly drill a hole in the middle, towards the bottom of the shell.

The drill goes through the shell pretty quickly, but make sure you keep the shell steady with one hand or else you risk cracking the shell {I know... trial and error heh}.

Find yourself a stick. A thick medium sized stick will do. We happened to have an abundance of stick in the yard and for this one instance, it actually worked out in my favor.

The purpose of the stick serves as the top piece where your shells will be hanging from.

You can keep the stick 'as-is' or you can clean it up a bit. I opted for cleaning mine up a bit. I wanted it to appear as if it were a piece of drift wood. SO... grab anything that you can easily scrape the tree bark bits off with. For mine I used a putty scraper.

We had a lot of heavy rain over the past couple days so all of the sticks in the yard are pretty water logged... normally it wouldn't look this 'dark' but all in all this is what your stick will look like once it's done being 'cleaned up'.

Now you will need some twine, or fishing line... or anything that you want to use to hang your wind chime from and also the shells to be hung from.

I used twine for this one.

Cut the length you want for the part you will use to hang your wind chime. Then tie a couple of good tight knots around each end of the stick.

Next you will use the same string you used for the hanging part of your stick, for your shells.

Loop the twine through the hole you made with the drill. For the bottom shell, tie a knot around it.. a nice tight knot. Then with the rest of the length of twine/string, loop as many shells as you want for that one piece, spacing them as close or as far apart from one another as you would like.

To add the shells, just bring the twine through the hole, then loop it around again and bring it back through the hole again. This allows you to adjust the space between each shell. No knots are needed, only for the bottom piece.

{and yes. I am wearing a 'Cars' bandaide. That's how I roll}.

Lastly- tie the top of your string of shells to the stick. Make a couple of good tight knots for extra durability.

And there you have it!

A sea-shell wind chime!

Perfect for adding a little 'beachiness' to any room or patio... or anywhere!

Luckily for me it's a little breezy out today and they really do make different sounds when they hit each other. I love the beach so I was really excited to create this project. Now we have a little something for out by the pool, to remind us of all the family trips we take to the beach to collect sea-shells :0)

Fuzzy ball Christmas tree

We made some ornaments. Im so excited about this because Jayden is at that age now where he can start to make his own little creations with the supplies we have and glue. We tried it when he was 2 and he was more interested in the glue then anything else but now.... now he is all about making his own little creations and it just makes me squeal with delight inside.

Lots of glitter!!

Glitter, paint and glue!

And those fuzzy ball things. I don't know the technical term for them other then fuzzy balls.

He made a fuzzy ball christmas tree out of Popsicle sticks and glitter sticks.

We also made one of those glass ball ornaments with the hand print that I have seen going around the internet pinterest.

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On another note can I just say I had the most amazing shower this morning!? No im not about to get all dirty minded with you all, but I had bought this exfoliater scrub back this past Summer. It's a Hawaiian coconut scent and I have only used it once. Since ive been working out I decided to use some of it again and wow, my legs feel amazing. I can't remember the brand of it off the top of my head but I got it at Target, if that helps :-P

In other news it seems like December is dragging. I don't know what it is but this year im just not feeling christmas as much as I did last year. Don't get me wrong, im excited and all and really excited for Jayden that 'Santa' is coming... but I just don't have that warm little fuzzy feeling in my gut that I normally get around this time of year. I think it might be because last year it was Christmas overload. We not only had my sister and her boys come {which turned into a trainwreck} but also my Dad came and I was so happy to have them down here but I think the chaos with all the boys and the drama between me and my sister... this year im just like UGH... sigh, relief, lets just do a low-key Christmas. 

We are not having anyone over and im totally content with that and after cooking two Thanksgiving meals, im done with cooking a big meal for... oh another year lol! 

 

Put a cotton ball on it

I originally wanted to talk about something that im super pumped about but with it being the FIRST of December I had to go ahead and post a craft. A christmas craft to be exact. So I will hold off until tomorrow to talk about what I originally wanted to talk about.

Okay. so ya, December 1. Can you believe it!? Doesn't it seem like just yesterday it was August? I know for me it seems that way. It seems like just yesterday the sun was shining brightly, the days were humid and I had major pits stains from the intense heat... OH wait, that was almost yesterday. I forgot I live in Florida haha. No but for real, it was 25 degrees this morning on my way to work. Its crazy to think it being 25 degrees in Florida but the weather down here in the winter is so sporadic. One day it's freezing, the very next it's hot and it continues to flip flop for the next 2-3 months.

So this post isn't a craft about weather. I promise.

It is however about something I made a loooong time ago and when I made this I always knew I wanted to make another one someday when I had kids of my own.

A Santa advent calendar!

I still remember back in kindergarten. You know back when they still had Christmas parties at school and you could make santa crafts and snowman crafts and christmas tree crafts.... ya, back then. Anyways, I was 6yrs old and of course at that age your totally psyched about christmas and santa and presents and toys and all things holly jolly. Am I right or am I right?

We had made these little Santa calendar {advent} out of construction paper, glue and cotton balls. If any craft I remember doing in school, it's this one. I LOVED it. Seriously loved it.

First you start out with some red and white construction paper. With the red cut out the shape of a santa hat. With the white, cut out the shape that would be a small part of his face and then his beard.

Next glue the santa hat to the beard. For the end of his hat I cut a circle out of some extra paper, glued it to the end and then glued cotton balls on it. Then you glue cotton balls along the bottom/rim of the hat and also along the face area. Leaving the rest of the beard exposed. 

For the nose and eyes you can pretty much draw them on, or for what we did, we put a felt ball for the nose. I didn't have any red. closest I had was a dark pink/cranberry color. For the eyes I added some of those googly eye things and drew on some glasses.

For the beard, write in the numbers leading up to the big day - 25.

Now for each day that passes leading up until Christmas you put a cotton ball on that date.

Since today is December 1, Jay put a cotton ball on '1'. 

24 more days to go!

Autumn art - c/o 3yr old

I think my love of color and painting was passed on to Jayden. he loves to draw, paint and color and the facial expressions he makes while doing so are priceless. it's like he is in deep thought. hard concentration paying extra attention to every line and curve.

♥

today we were on the hunt for some acorns and leaves.

thomas the train pajama pants - check

shoes - check

no shirt - check

just when I thought it was starting to cool off, heavy rains dragged some left over humidity right back in. lets hope come tomorrow morning it's gone again {and for good}.

so we had our acorns. next we needed to scour the yard for some cool looking leaves.

now that we had everything we needed and lola sniffed just about every inch of the yard once over, again for the 1637836484 time... we were ready to head back inside and work on our art project.

I gathered some craft paint in various autumn-ish colors.

and then came the fun part. dipping the bottom parts of the acorns into some colorful autumn paint.

J's came out far better then the one I did {the one on the left... ha!}

while the acorns were drying we worked on the leaves. painting one side and then 'stamping' them down on a canvas.

then taking some acorns shells that snuck into our acorn bowl, we stamped little circles throughout the canvas.

and now we have some fun 3yr old autumn canvas art!

J totally did all this.. well I created the 'brush strokes' around all the leaves to make them stand out more and added a few circles with an acorn shell, but everything else is all him.

this was a simple fun little fall project to work on with him and since we both love color and paint, it made it that much more fun!

we have two large cork boards in the office and as you can see I like to hang up a lot of the art he makes at 'school'.

I love looking at all his little works of art and all of his creations. its like seeing his personality out on paper in fun and various colors and shapes. once the leave art dries we will be adding it to his little 'picasso wall' :)

{as for the acorns... their still drying. stick around to see what we make with them}.

Autumn changes and G-Pa gets a webcam, holla!

I know I have been away far to long {what, about a week?}. Its been so stressful at work for the past two weeks that im surprised I even survived. and when I say stress I don't mean the workload, but coworkers. The dust is starting to dwindle and I can slowly start to see the sun again. my stress level is lowering and im slowly getting back into my groove because no one likes a Kasey whose not groovy.

Speaking of groovy. today is Joshs Birthday. The big one. The one where I will continually hear how 'old' he is. the big '31'. I bet you thought I was going to go all even number on you but instead I went all odd number on you.

because im groooovy like that.

Its slowly starting to look like fall around. inside and out. the temp is still in the low 90's but that humidity {ugh} is finally getting the ol' heave ho outta here which makes a big difference. Last week it dropped to the low 60's at night and since then the leaves had started to crinkle, the pool is cold {seriously} and my plants are breathing a sigh of relief.

ive started collecting some of these pine cone looking things from the two very large pines in the back yard. I have a few ideas for them but for right now they have been sitting outside on the patio table. waiting patiently.

some dried out limbs and sticks from the intense summer heat have also been starting to fall from the trees. I am slowly but surely making J a small little 'hut' for him to play in.

its fun. I used to make them when I was a kid. ah, the memories.

slowly the leaves are feeling the effects of the 'cooler' nights and less humid days.

some turn a dark red and fall and others just crinkle, dry out and fall to the ground.

the sun this time of year also is very reminiscent of fall. the way the sun sets and the way the rays of the sun hit the yard. even the smallest changes in angles of light remind me that fall is here and summer is leaving gracefully.

now that the late afternoons are cooler we have more fun running around outside. the air smells clean and we can actually breath it in without our noses swelling up with intense humidity.

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The outside hasn't been the only thing changing. the inside as well has slowly been changing. I have been making progress with creating a little more 'fall' feel around this shin-dig.

with the same technique I used to make the scrapbook paper bunting around J's room re-do, I made a bunting for the dining room. a small one using some scrapbook papers from my Autumn book that I bought last year.

another change and this might not really be a 'fall decor' type of change but I figured since it is in fact a small change that I would just add it into the post. 

new knobs for the table I moved into the entryway. yea buddy!

 

I bought them at Hobby Lobby for 50% off each knob. I couldnt pass up that offer. the only hard part was choosing which ones to pick. in the end I went with a colorful floral knob for the top drawer {ceramic flared knob - bella moda} and a yellow plain knob for the two doors at the bottom {ceramic flat & round knob in yellow}.

Love them.

...and you know it's fall when starbucks brings out the pumpkin spice lattes. Yesssssss.

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and grandpa gets a webcam.

 

I cant stop watching it. this little lovely couple has made my day complete. ♥

 

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 A big congrats to Rachel for winning one of my custom made iphone pouches and to Billy for winning one of my custom made camera lens pouch and camera strap cover in the giveaway over at lisa d Photography! If your reading this, I received your email addresses today and your items will be going out tomorrow! 

:0)