She Sells Sea Shells By the Sea Shore

This year we didn't have tons of money for Christmas gifts. We also wanted go commercial-free as much as we could. I also wanted to bring home a little of SunLand to Drek's siblings. All the combined into three homemade Christmas gifts.

First off, Drek and I went to the beach several times. We walked along, finding seashells and having a wonderful time. We cleaned and sorted the seashells and made a few crafts:

This one turned out the best. I took a brand-new wooden picture frame and hot-glued a few seashells on the frame.

I put in some cute photos I took on the beach and I thought it looked great!

Some sea shells had holes in them, I assume from some sort of sea creature.

So I strung some string through them and turned it into a bookmark.

(Any guesses on that book?)

And here is my favorite craft: Take the biggest seashells,

and some tea candles. melt the wax and pour into seashells, transfer the wicks.
and you have candle seashells!
Now I know you're looking at these crafts with a winkled nose and thinking that they look like elementary school children made them. I'm not going to argue that. I will simply tell a story:

I did another craft for my niece. It was a painted wooden board with a stencil. All I had to do was paint the board using the stencil and the craft would be done. After applying three layers I pulled off the stencil and discovered the paint hand gotten under the stencil, creating horrible swollen bubble letters that made it impossible to decipher the words. It was a disaster. I am very craft-challenged, you see. The fact that these sea shell crafts actually look like the intended outcome is my greatest success.

This, compared to my amazing sister-in-law, who made us the most amazing looking magnetic board for all our holiday needs, and a super-cute compartment for Ash's carseat, so Ash has access to toys and snacks. And check out my what my sister made for Ash; Zoo animal finger puppets. Aren't they AMAZING?!