Let's make a Shell Moblie.

Our beach is a treasure trove of beautiful shells. The rock pools are filled with brightly gleaming shells, gorgeous colors of the rainbow shimmering in the water. Many of the shells that have washed up on the beach have been bleached white by the sun. We have strolled for hours, collecting such beautiful treasure. Today, we made a pretty shell mobile. We chose all of the shells we have collected that had holes in them.

We needed,

* scissors
* ribbon or string
* shells with holes in them.


Kitty and her cousin cut a length of white ribbon and tied a shell onto the end to form the stopper for the other shells.

They threaded all of her sells onto the ribbon.

They look so lovely hanging together... soft colors bleached by the sun.

Different shapes and sizes.

We hung it from the Milkwood tree in front of our house and it sways gently in the breeze.

The proud artists, standing with the shell necklaces they also made today.

Sometimes, the simplest things are the prettiest.

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Running the Waves.

We have a beach that we go to that we call our 'Bad Weather Beach'. When the sky is overcast or windy, we know that this is the best place to be. The surf is rough, with crashing waves and lots of wonderful treasures wash up on the golden sand. We find driftwood, shells and sea glass. I can collect.

Today, we arrived at high tide. K climbed the sand dune to survey the scene.

She was quickly followed by her little brother.

Down to the water to take in the freedom of the open space.

To feel the energy of the ocean.

To smell the salty air.

And then their game begins - their favorite beach game... Dad and his girl. It's called 'Running the Waves'. They follow the retreating wave, holding each other's hand for courage. They are excited, waiting in anticipation for what they know will come.

And then the wave crashes on the shore. A loud, thundering explosion of sound and they turn and run, as fast as they can, desperate to escape the foamy, bubbling water.

It nearly catches them, but they are fast this time, they beat it. They feel powerful and whoop in excitement as they follow it back to race it again.

Little Brother feels brave enough to play too.

Often the sea is quicker. She catches them and envelops them in her frothy love.

They get wet. They get naked.

They laugh, they sparkle, they feel so alive that surely this will be a memory they keep with them into the sun.

You fill my heart to the brim, my sandy children.

Blessings and magic,

Donni

How to make Colored Sand.

Mr T insisted on bringing home a bucket of sand from the beach. Unlike me, he loves sand so much and can play with it for hours. He really doesn't mind if it gets in his hair, his clothes, his bed!

So, to enthuse with this love, we decided to make colored sand.

This is what we needed;

a bucket of sand

a sieve

6 large Ziploc bags

6 colors of foodcoloring

spoons

paper towels

water

We made little bowls from the Ziplock bags like this...

We set our sieve in the Ziploc bowl and filled it with sand.

As the sand was from the beach, it was full of small shells that we wanted to separate from the sand. T loves to sift stuff. He took this job very seriously and meticulously sifted all the shells from the clean sand.

We arranged the sand-filled bags on the grass as the next step is to add the food coloring. We wanted to make sure that a mistake did not mean a permanently colored patio!

Granny helped Mr T wet the sand with water from a jug.
We added enough water to make the sand soggy. Too much water will make it hard for the sand to absorb the food coloring.

K joined us for the fun task of adding color to our soggy sand. We added food coloring liberally.

Then we zipped up the bags and massaged the color into the sand. K loved the tactile nature of massaging the sand through the bag. It was cool and squishy and made a wonderful scrunching noise if you listened carefully.

We added different colors to our bags of sand and then laid them flat for 30 minutes to let the sand absorb the color.

Then we turned each bag out onto a couple of sheets of strong paper towels to dry in the sand.

It dried in a day. Tomorrow we are going to use our colored sand to make something fun... stay tuned!
Blessings and magic.

Wonderful Beach Treasures.

It was an overcast and windy day and we needed to blow the cobwebs from our heads. There is a beach that we call 'The Peninsula' not far from us. We love this beach as the sea is rough and the waves bring treasures from the sea onto the beach for lucky searchers to find... this is where we found ourselves... on top of the sand dunes, looking out over the vast bay.

To our delight, the high-tide-mark was strewn with sea treasures.

And we discovered that these sea treasures could be used to make all manner of things... Boats waiting patiently for the tide to take them out to see.
K took her nature journal to log all the 'especial' things we saw.
A small flock of Godwits patrolled the surf, looking for little delicacies in the sand. They were wonderful to watch as they poked their strong, long beaks down holes to find their breakfast. If you click on this photo, you will be able to see the sand still sticking to this fellows beak.
A colander full of sea treasure was collected.

When we got home, it was diligently washed...

And lined up for inspection.

The shells...
The sea bricks, worn smooth by many, many years of attrition on the sea floor... we think they might have come from the ledgend city of Atlantis.
Drift wood, rubbed smooth by the water and waves. Do you think one of these pieces of driftwood came from the raft Robinson Crusoe sailed on to find his island?
And our favorite, Sea Glass. We would not have known of the value of these little sea gems if it were not for the wonderful Garden Mama who wrote about it in this post a few weeks ago.

What treasures the sea gave us. Before we left her beach, we gazed out over her vast expanse and said a blessing of thanks and cast a wish into her depths that people everywhere would respect her bounty and protect her treasures.

Here is a story about another treasure nature gave us.

Blessings and magic.