Shell Art and Sanibel

On our honeymoon, Mr. Fancee and I collected loads and loads of sea shells!  We went to Sanibel Island which is known for its incredible shelling, and pretty much spent an entire week hunting for the best finds. 🙂  Once we tried laying out on the beach and just relaxing… that lasted maybe 20 minutes before we were out on the shore line stooping for shells once again.  (They call it the ‘Sanibel Stoop,’ isn’t that funny?)

Since we collected so many shells, we needed a place to store them and maybe even display them as our keepsake from the trip.  A week ago, we tackled this with two projects.  First, I found a shadow box at Goodwill.  Lining it with white paper and hot gluing on some of our favorite simpler shells, it ended up looking like this:

Shell Shadow Box | Mrs. Fancee

Mr. Fancee and I are currently working on building a shelf that will eventually be the home for this guy, along with other art and pictures.

So, after making this, we still had loads of shells leftover.  Inspired by a display in the bathroom of our honeymoon condo, we opted to put them in an apothecary jar from TJ Maxx (my favorite store ever… ever!).  It’s a simple thing, but still a nice way to show off our finds without the obtrusion of a display case.  We had a fun time arranging them in the jar, plus it looks great with several other decorations in our bathroom (I will have to share more of those sometime.)

Shell Apothecary Jar Display  |  Mrs. Fancee

Here are a few photos from Sanibel: 🙂

Sanibel Shelling Sunrise

Sanibel Island Sunrise

Early Morning on Sanibel

Several days we went to the beach before the sun was out to catch the new batch of shells at low tide.  We caught these pics as the sun began peaking up above the island.

Birds and Shells on Sanibel

These little sandpipers joined us in the morning as we perused the shoreline for shells.

Beach Walk on Sanibel

Heading back to the condo after a successful early morning shelling trip.  (Notice Mr. Fancee’s wet shorts?  We were not afraid to get in the water and dig :))

Our Sanibel Shell Collection

A sample of our shell collection mid-week.  We already had quite a few!

Sanibel Apothecary Jar

Here is the little bathroom display that inspired ours.  Cute idea isn’t it?  And yes, that is aloe in the background, by the end of the week we got pretty burnt…

Sanibel Lobster

We tried to be adventurous and eat things we wouldn’t normally in Illinois.  This was our fancy dinner (yes, I dressed up for every dinner just because I could ;)) and we tried lobster!  I did pretty good, until I got to the tail… then I got weirded out and gave the rest to Mr. Fancee!

Happy Friday! 🙂

Linking up at Obsessive and Creative

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