Do you guys visit the seaside when summer comes around? I live in an Arizona desert so we don’t have a sea by us. It takes 6 hours to get to the sea from where we live. Actually 4 I believe if you want to drive into another country, that country being Mexico, which is gorgeous. So much fun visiting Mexico. Usually we go to California to spend time at the beach, but we haven’t been in years.

My favorite part about the beaches are the tiny little shells and pebbles everywhere that glisten in the sunlight from the water reflecting off of them. Such a beautiful treasure to pick up and touch. The textures of the sand on your fingers along with the smoothness of the glass, pebble or shell. It goes along with the smells and breezes that come with a nice long walk with the sea by your side.

Everything about it is wonderful. The seagulls communicating with each other. The background noises of conversations from the people around you, kids laughing and running, and those gentle sounds of the waves as they try to reach out to touch you as you walk by them. Sometimes the wave will reach you and then you have the added surprise of the coolest of the water mixed with the sand on your feet. Everything is wonderful about a walk on the beach.

You will need:

Plaster of Paris

Shell mold (usually they sell these in the candy making section at hobby/craft stores)

Assorted paints

Decoupage glue like Mod Podge.

White chalk paint (optional)

First mix up your plaster according to instructions on package. You can purchase plaster at craft stores. If you want a large bag of plaster then check out the large home stores for that.

I will wipe the molds with a little olive oil before I pour the plaster into them. Some molds are very small with lots of areas where there are cracks and small corners to fill, sometimes those types of molds are a little more of a challenge when you are pouring a mold and it has a hard time getting out. I just barely wipe a little oil on the mold before I use it.

Let the wet mold dry for awhile. I live somewhere where it is super dry so it doesn’t take long at all for me to pop the item out of the mold. I just turn it over and gentle pop out the tiny plaster shells.

Let all your shells dry for a day, then coat them with Mod podge to seal them for easier painting.

I distressed my shells to give them a worn out vintage sort of look. First I painted them black/brown then I painted over that with white chalk paint.

You can paint your shells anyway you want. Get creative, add stripes, dots, or flowers. Whatever you want. If you have kids at home, create a art studio of your shell creations and pretend to have a grand opening of your shell exhibit. Also extra fun to throw in some pretend play.

ASD tips- It’s very important to seal the plaster pieces after you have made them, this helps children who may have hypersensitivities to certain textures like chalk or powder type textures.

Use water color paints to cut back on the temptations of pouring acrylic paints or other paints all over counters. Some children on the Autism spectrum love messy play sensory activities so they will do this.

If your child loves that type of play then use finger paints to paint your items with. They don’t really cover items well though but your kids will love it. This is about fun after all.

Find a nice sea side clip to watch while you work on your craft. The sounds of the sea and seeing real life shells and sand will visually help with encouraging your child to participate in this art activity.

Check out library books on the sea to sit down and share with your child. Do a whole week of ocean activities with your child. So many fun seaside sensory activities that you can do that relate to the ocean.

If I had more time on my hands I could do a whole month of sensory activities with sea animal themes for you all. Sadly I barely had time to do this one but I needed a craft brake from everything else we are all doing at the moment so I did this project one morning. So much on our plates right now, again…in a good way.

When I finally do get around to doing more DIY’s and once again writing up my monthly updates they will be a little less personal though as you all know my estranged family found this site so I have to be extra careful with how much I share now.

I especially have one estranged family member who is insidious and sinister with how they operate with their obsessions with me over the years….so, yeah…there’s that…no fun.

One of the big reasons I am taking this social media break right now and all comments are disabled for the time being is because of that.

This is not anything new as I know there are so many of you out there with the same issues right now. This world is sadly divided and if we go back in all our histories growing up I bet you too will remember that some people, even your own family members…they never really got you, or had your back….well, that’s all part of what we are all going through right now. Two sides.

Some people love to hold on to decades old drama , searching out the ones they say hurt them or bothered them just to get drama back in their lives again. That’s actually really sad if you think about it. And others just want to be left alone in privacy. But those old crabs in the bucket, they sure like trying to pull back the crabs who have escaped back into their bucket…don’t they.

If someone is bothered by someone, and they complain for decades that person hurt them, then why search them out and their children to continue fights, even after that person has sent out No Contact letters…why? The answer to that is probably for the reasons that they just love to instigate and cause distress for the ones they envy. They are the true instigators and their patterns of searching out and making contact point to the fact that they are the true perpetrators.

It’s a federal offense to torment someone through the USPS by sending sinister letters claiming to be a dead relative, which this family member did to me and I still have that letter. Someone could get into some serious trouble with the years of contacting someone that just wants to be left alone.

I am writing about one person in particular that is very unstable and mentally dangerous in my opinion as she has a history of stalking and cyber bullying others as well. She can get her enablers to make excuses for her behaviors all they want…those behaviors are still unstable, and sinister.

Everything happens for a reason. This is actually helping me in the big picture of things. This is what I tell myself of course. I am working on a whole new set up and redesign of my social media sites…always a good thing to freshen things up I remind myself. Trying to stay positive, that’s what that is.

So I better stop here with this out of no where rant I started on…you see, this is what happens. I pop on to write up a nice little DIY and I remember that I have a creepy person that knows about my site now. But I’m still here, and I will continue with trying to share good things in the world, instead of looking for drama like the creepy person does and always has done since we were kids. Drama, and that art of getting people to feel sorry for them, it is like a drug to some people.

Please, to anyone who happens to pop on to this site right now and you are reading this, go out and do something positive, volunteer, teach someone, do something kind in person, face to face for a stranger (not a facebook group or online thing to get likes for)…and don’t tell anyone you did any kind deeds out in the world, keep that to yourself. We all need to put out more positive in the world …the world is injured.

If you really want to make this world a better place, then stop hanging onto hate and learn to forgive, to not be jealous, to not be bitter… actually find good things in life that are only about peace love and happiness.

Stop looking for confrontations, because there are already enough of those out there in the world right now. Go out in the world and create something instead of trying to destroy something. Walk down a different path and do the opposite. Believe me, the path of peace is a much better place to be in. Happy summer adventures and crafting everyone and may God bless you all and keep you all safe.

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