ANOTHER Hobby!?

 Sorry I have been absent, but truthfully I have not had much to post. The tides haven't been great here lately and we (The Shell Raisers) have had to postpone the one trip we had planned so not much going on! So I have been crafting mostly...you know me, I'm not usually idle. The first weekend in March is a big Shell Festival, it is actually the 85th year! I have helped prepare for this show for probably 15 years or so and have never been able to attend. This year will be my first, and I'm excited! We (Sanibel Shellcrafters) are busily making things to sell and getting things ready to display! I've been making my shell trees...

I know most of you have seen these, you probably even have one (or two)!! :)  They are very popular and sell nearly as quickly as I can make them! I've also been painting shells for the Shellcrafters...Large shells mostly like these....

Of course I've also been painting shells and hiding them on the island to bring smiles to folks....I love doing that and it's great therapy...the painting and the hiding....'sprinkling' is what we call it!

Jolene and I also decided to try a new hobby....I need a new hobby, right?!

We took Glass class this week, we went to a small little town called Matlacha, a beautiful little artsy beach town with bright colored buildings, art galleries and small popular seafood restaurants! A lady there teaches this glass in the garage of her house and she does amazing work! The first thing I learned was that it is raised art...instead of flat, you build your art up! It was a blast, her room is filled with so many colors of glass, in pieces, vases, glasses, any glass you can think of, and you get to break it, cut it, hammer it....whatever you want to make the piece you want for your art work!!! How about that for fun? I decided to make a palm tree... you put it together and when your done, you leave it and she covers it in clear resin. You go back in a couple days to get it! Jolene and I had a blast....the hardest thing was deciding what to create....I decided on a Palm Tree....

This is the view from the bottom....see how high it stands up off of the canvas?

Jolene made this beautiful fish! How gorgeous is that??

I can see us doing more of this....!! So fun!!

Today Liz, her husband, Mike, and I went to Manasota Key in search of Shark's teeth! It's a beautiful beach! The water was a beautiful blue and crystal clear!

It always takes me a little time to adjust my eyes to looking for the teeth, they are generally very small, and you need to concentrate.... here's a couple of examples...

They are usually dark....do you see it??

I circled it in red in this picture....

The actually tooth is tucked under a shell piece...here is what it looks like...

Here's another...

This one is a lot more obvious...

Here are my final finds....

of course I couldn't resist the limpet, coquina pair and pretty little orange scallop!
 Here's a little closeup....

Fun...huh?! Liz got some really nice larger ones also....(I forgot to get a picture of hers) hopefully she'll post a pic too!!!

The tides are beginning to improve, so I anticipate a few early morning trips coming soon, so stay tuned!!

::Shelllady Hugs::