Sea Shells from the Sea Shore.

It doesn't matter how old I am. If I'm at the beach and there are sea shells. I will be picking some up. 

I love them. 

But what do you do with them once you have them? I didn't really want a jar or a picture frame, and that was about all I could think of. Until I realized they WERE my souvenir. So instead of framing something else,I decided to frame them. This one is from a 2012 trip and a beautiful day at Laguna Beach. The Sea Stars were purchased. The rest were found. 

I recently returned from a wonderful California trip with my Mom and my Sister. We started at Santa Monica Pier and made it all the way down to Laguna with most of our time spent at Newport. My sister and I walked the beach in search of treasures. I couldn't believe it when I found a fully intact Sand Dollar. It was the first time I have ever found one. I was excited to show my sister and we decided we would look until we found one for her. My Mom finally found it for her. I'm sure it is strange, but it felt like a reassuring gift to us.  

When we got home I started the search for the right frame. I had one I was working on but decided an 8x10 opening was too small. Our Shopko is closing so I decided to see what they had on clearance. I found this lovely piece of wall art. 

I looked past the chicken and knew I could do something with it. I brought it home and taped up all the framing then sprayed the chicken away with primer. 

Bye Bye Chicken

I added my favorite gold paint -Krylon Caramel Latte. 

It is a lovely, soft gold. I use this paint a lot. 

Now for the frame. I liked its rough, barn wood look, but the color wasn't beachie enough. 

A bit of deglosser to take the seal off of the wood. 

Water down some turquoise paint to brush onto the frame,

leave it to soak in for just a minute, then wipe off the excess 

Not sure you can tell with my lighting, but the left side has some blue, most of the right hasn't been painted yet. 

 Time to figure the lay out and glue it down. 

I love how it ended up. I need to find someone with great handwriting. I would like to add the year and location to the frame. -But in a good way. Which rules out me EVER taking sharpie to it.-  

So whatd'ya think?  Not bad for Chicken art