If your new to my blog, thanks for stopping in. After dinner at my house I grab a couple kids and head down the street to our Lighthouse. We live on the bay side of the New Jersey coast, a hop skip and jump to Cape May.

It has been up in the 90's the past few days here.

Two nights ago on our after dinner trip the tide was so high the water was splashing over the bulk head.

It was hard for the girls to resist and I had no plan on stopping them, you should have heard the squeals of delight!

It was hard to tear them away, but after 20 minutes the tide was getting higher and it was time to go.

These are last nights pictures, again the tide was high so we didn't find any sea glass, notice how calm the water is.

Any outfit goes, I don't argue with what they wear on our short travels. Rarely do we run into any other people. We believe this is "our" beach.

Tomorrow is another day, we got home way to late tonight from a BBQ to hunt for Sea Glass today.

♥

Kim

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With summer in full swing my esty shop has been neglected this past week. I'm hoping next week will be much more productive, wish me luck :)

~~~~Celebrate~~~~

Come and take a second to celebrate with me! Time, patience and persistence has really paid off this week for me and my Sea Shell endeavors. I made sales! 7 in the past 4 days! Two were off to North Carolina to be included in a beach wedding ceremony, and 5 are off tomorrow morning to Texas! We can't forget the black and gold conch that went out last week too and found a new beautiful home in California, thank you Therese :) You can see it here, on her super duper treasure hunting blog http://ladolfina.blogspot.com/ she has an amazing sea shell collection to, scroll down to see how she displays them, La Dolfina truly has inspired me.





Don't forget to feed the fish, and follow :)

::::::: The Thrill of the Find :::::

Some trips to the oceans edge are better than others. This winter I have come to salvage quite a few conchs, not as many as I would have liked but enough to fill a few pages of my Etsy shop. They range from huge "gorilla conchs" as my husband calls them to sweet baby conchs. It's always a thrill to find them, the winter months are the best and the prime pickins are found on the coldest days of the year. We have learned this from years of looking for them. But it is FREEZING COLD when we go and not another soul to be seen. Not so bad when the wind is at your back, but the long walk back to warmth sometimes makes me wonder if it's worth it. Then I get home, clean them up and paint them up and I soon forget all the bitter cold pain.

Don't forget to feed the fish, and follow :)

A Light Lesson on Sea Shells

Clam shells consist of a wide variety of bi-valve shells in many shapes and sizes. Some are edible and some produce pearls. Most live in shallow waters and the species can be found in either fresh or salt water.

An example:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38054922

Edible oysters are the most commonly known throughout the world as a popular source of seafood. Their shell is porcelaneous and the pearls produced from these edible oysters have little value. Other types of oyster shells include the p earled oyster shells, thorny oyster shells, and jingle shells.

An example:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=37917278

For my work I prefer Clam Shells to paint on because of the semi smooth surface. I do work on oyster shells, I think they make for great ornaments once drilled. Most sea shells can't pass my drilling process, they are fradgile and crack with to much pressure. It has been a learning process to know exactly where to drill and how each shell is diffrent and requires diffrent amount of pressure. Many a drill bitt I have broken learning this.

Thanks for looking, don't forget to feed the fish and follow :)