Message in a Bottle

Hello again!

For those who are visiting for the first time, I am in the mood to celebrate my home for summer! I love the beach. The sun, shells, water, cool breezes, and the sand. Especially the sand. There's something very neat that happens when you stick your feet in warm salty, beach sand. So my inspiration for today's crafts were inspired by the sandy beaches...

First: I have my Sandy Birds. Birds are in, and you'll find them on many blogs, store catalogs, and magazines.

Materials:

• Beach Sand,
• Fake birds (scored mine at the Dollar store),
• Tacky glue,
• Spray paint (I used gold for my base),
• Paint brush,
• Glue on rhinestones (to make it ,
• Clear/Sealer Spray Paint (make my birds shine).

1. Spray a base coat on the birds. I used gold because it's one of my favorite colors but I am sure that any other neutral color would work fine. Let it dry. You might have to put a second coat - I did.

2. Liberally apply tacky glue to the bird with a paint brush.


3. Pour your beach sand over the bird on the glue.

4. Let the glue dry. Spray a clear coat of sealer on the birds and let them dry.

5. Once dry, attach your glue-on rhinestones to the eyes of the bird. For those who aren't excited about the rhinestones, they still look really cute without.

Second project: Beach in a Bottle.

This project was inspired a few years back. While vacationing, my husband and I visited a small island off the coast of Puerto Rico, named Culebra. We got to spend a day, ALL DAY, on Flamenco Beach (among other beaches) and this was the best. It was a place and time in my marriage I never wanted to forget. So, I took some Flamenco Beach sand and shoved in an old water battle. Years have passed since then and we just moved to California. I still have that bottled of sand (shoved in a drawer box somewhere). I don't want to throw it out but I cannot display as is. I thought it would be so cool to travel more (one day) and visit and collect more sand from other beaches around the world!
Well, we now have a few kids, so currently, we are collecting sand form the beautiful beaches of Cali.

Here's what you'll need:

• Sand,
• Bottle (I used a small pellegrino bottle),
• cork or foam sheets,
• tacky glue,
• twine or rope,
• tags or paper,
• funnel.

1. Wash bottles and remove labels. Scrubbing your glass bottles with rubbing alcohol will get the stubborn glue to come off if soaking will not work.

2. Using a funnel, pour your sand in the bottle.

3. Now, I could not find corks anywhere and I didn't want my monkeys to pour the sand out so I decided to use folded up pieces of foam to close the bottles. Once I managed to shoved a HUGE piece of foam in the opening, I put a little bit of tack glue on the inside so it would stay put.

4. I also put glue on the top to seal the bottle shut.

5. Print out the name of the beach you visited or some fake beach you hope to visit on paper and tie it to your bottle. I think I will search for cute, old fashioned tags for these. Now to search for my PR sand...