I hope everybody survived the powerful energies of the 8/8/8 Lion’s Gate Portal! It was intense, wasn’t it? And still is…
I always return to the simple things to realign myself on life’s journey; a little course correction of some vitamin sea at the beach with sand and seashells.
Art by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
Quote by Nicollete Sowder
Text over art by Enchanted Seashells
From Casa de Enchanted Seashells….Happy Father’s Day to all the good dads in the world! 🐚
Whether it’s a Chanel or a seashell, they both bring me joy.
Since I’m woefully allergic to most cut flowers like roses and stargazer lilies, I’m rarely able to have vases full of sweet smelling blooms to decorate every room, but I do have hundreds of seashell treasures, collected by me or presented as gifts.
This is the very last freesia of the season; she’s so precious that I had to bring her in so I could marvel over her color and fragrance, but I had to place far away her from me or I’d start sneezing. As you can see, she’s happily resting among a few of my other seashell friends.
I’ve never really figured out why I love seashells as much as I do, but I learned that some people associate seashells with love and fertility. Some also believe they represent the safe journey between the physical and spiritual world, while seashell jewelry is supposed to bring good luck and to protect the spirit of the wearer.
I’m not super creative like everyone on Etsy and Pinterest, but I do like to embellish almost everything with shells and rocks.
Here’s how to make the seashell bouquet:
I’m pleased with the results.
I liked the idea of a seashell bouquet so much that I made another one; more rustic, in a vintage frog vase (Majolica? McCoy?) from an antique store. This time I used sticks from the garden to attach the seashells.
And because I was inspired by the seashell bouquets, I started a more intense project. With my handy glue gun and a lot of glue sticks, this entry mirror took a longer to complete than I thought it would, but I’m happy with the outcome.
I have a million seashells, well maybe not actually ONE MILLION, but I have a lot. Some are big, some small; many are so beautiful they’re lovingly displayed on shelves. To me, they’re all enchanted.
During the torrential rain when it was stupidly dangerous to venture out and I was forced to allow my leg to heal, I decided it was the perfect time to dust and rearrange my enchanted treasures.
In the process of relocating one of the seashells, I noticed there was what seemed to be paper stuck deep inside the cavity and that piqued my curiosity.
What was it?
A treasure map? A love note? Jewels?
Tweezers were necessary to extract whatever it was, and when I uncrumpled two pieces of thin yellow paper, I discovered THIS:
It appears to be a receipt from the Chong Hua Hospital pharmacy. It doesn’t say anything else that I can decipher. Google reports that this hospital is located outside of Cebu City in the Philippines.
Crazy, right? From the Philippines? Why was it in a seashell? How did it get there? How did it get HERE?
There was no date, no name, no treasure map, no smuggled diamonds, no love letter.
You can 1000% believe that I’ve peered inside every other seashell around here but they’re all devoid of any surprises.
The mystery remains…
I rescued this treasure at the thrift store, an adorable penguin box crafted of Capiz shells from the Philippines. Used extensively for jewelry and even window panes, it’s the shell of the oyster, Placuna placenta.
The way the light hits it is stunning and artistic for such a small thing.
I love little boxes.
And bowls I can fill with owl and hawk feathers I discover in my garden or on walks.
This sort of reminds me of Mary Oliver, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
No darkness here as you can see, but I guess I’ll have to fill my box of nothing with something, probably and predictably rocks or seashells, and then it will no longer be a lonely box of nothing.
Since it’s just about time to honor June’s Full Moon, it seems like the perfect opportunity to chat about Moonstone Beach, another sea glass location I need to visit. It’s in Cambria on California’s Central Coast.
It’s said that at Moonstone Beach beach you can find moonstone agates plus jade, jaspers, and other semi-precious stones.
Here’s a photo of some of my beach glass collection. Red is the third most rare type of sea glass, and I only have a couple pieces of that color.
Did you know? Orange is the most rare sea glass color. Turquoise is the second most rare color and the rarest type of blue sea glass. Red is the third most rare sea glass color and yellow is the fourth. I guess white and green and brown are more common to find because I have a lot of those colors, probably because most bottles were crafted in those colors.
None of the beaches around me have sea glass OR many seashells, although we have an abundant and endless supply of ROCKS.
May the shells on the beach remind you that treasures arrive every day in the form of simple things.
As much as I love seashells, I love sea glass, too. Did you know it takes an ocean about thirty years to break down glass into these jewels?
The beaches in my area aren’t great for sea glass OR seashells, but we do have a lot of rocks, so I can always satisfy my obsession by picking up one special stone or a dozen sun-warmed rocky gems.
I’ve always wanted to visit Fort Bragg in Northern California but you’re not supposed to remove any glass from that beach, which would be so hard NOT to do.
Here are some other beaches that I’d love to visit and collect a treasure trove of sea glass:
🐚 Hanapepe Bay Glass Beach in Kauai.
🐚 Port Townsend Glass Beach, a two-hour ferry ride from Seattle.
🐚 Summerland Beach outside Santa Barbara.
🐚 Steklyashka Beach in Vladivostok, Russia is supposed to feature an amazing display of colorful glass, but I doubt I’ll ever get there. I found the photo on Pinterest, but I think that’s where it was taken.
Have you visited any of the seaglass beaches? Let me know in the comments!
“Enjoy the little things in life because one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.” Wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Like I always say, I love a gift equally no matter if it’s a Chanel or a seashell. They’re all exquisite treasures and all appreciated.
Either one…
No longer Hanukkah; it’s time to decorate for Christmas with seashells and pearls and sparkle.
There is forever joy in opening up the treasure trove every year; it’s like Groundhog Day, always brand new to me.
PS Apologies if this posted again. I had a weird issue with WP and can’t even find the words to explain what happened!
For #ThrowbackThursday, I reached into the vault of previously written posts and found this one from 2012.
I reworked it a bit and added a few more photos of the seashell bouquets that I’ve crafted since then.
At the time, I needed a new project and somewhere. probably on Pinterest, I saw a bouquet of seashells and starfish and thought that it looked easy enough to re-create, so I did!
An added benefit to the seashell bouquet is to make as a gift for anyone who’s allergic to flowers. The irony here is that I’m allergic to roses. With a name like Rosebud, that’s pretty funny, not that I’d toss them out if someone wanted to send me a dozen, but we can’t be in the same room at the same time.
How to make the seashell bouquet:
1. Get craft sticks of all sizes; I even used chopsticks.
2. If you don’t have a glue gun, get one! I can’t live without mine, that’s for sure. For this project, you don’t have to be perfect, obvs you need to use more glue for the heavier starfish
3. Florist’s foam, that would be a good idea and it’s easily available at craft stores and the dollar store, which is where I got mine.
4. It’s pretty simple: glue the seashell or starfish or sparkly treasure to the stick.
5. Insert into foam cut to fit snugly inside the vase.
6. Done!
Voila! Here’s the finished product. This vase is at the bottom of our stairs up to the second level and is the first thing you see when you come in the front door.
Are you crafty? Let me know what you’ve been doing all the many months of being isolated during the Covid Pandemic. The next time I get to see Angel Boy 2.0, I think he’s old enough to help me make one, and I think he’d love to create a seashell bouquet. Of course, he’s still too young to use a glue gun, other than that, it’s a great project for children.
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 