Beach Vacation Sand Art

Do you save sand from your beach vacations? I know I do. Read this post for an idea of what to do with your collection.

Read this post, How To Easily Protect Your Property While Traveling, before your next beach vacation.

One of my favorite souvenirs to bring back from vacation is the sand from our beach vacations.  I never realized how different sand is from each other until I started collecting and saw them side by side.  I collected a lot of sand over the years and was even given sand by my daughter, Lisa, when she went to California.  What I did when I finally decided to do something with the collected sand, was to put them in separate glass bottles.  I soon had too many bottles and nowhere to display them.  My second idea was to turn them into ornaments for our Christmas tree.  I bought small baby rattles at A.C. Moore that could be filled with candy for a baby shower.  I labeled them and then filled them with the sand.  The ornaments were too heavy for the branches of the tree and didn't look right.  My third try at displaying the sand is finally something I am happy with.  I like how the sand art turned out so much that I am starting to collect more sand to make another one.

I always have a bottle of water with me when I go to the beach.  I've found that the easiest way for me to bring sand home is in that water bottle.   After I drink the water I dry the bottle out as best as I can.   I try to put only clean sand in the bottle.    I  scoop up a handful of sand and just sift through it to get dried seaweed and anything else out that I don't want in the sand.   When I'm happy with how the sand looks,  I pour it into the bottle.  

If you want to remember where your sand came from make sure you label your bottle or container.  I keep a list of the beaches where the sand in my bottle came from.  Starting from the bottom:  Labadee, Haiti; 7 Mile Beach, Grand Cayman; Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; Horseshoe Bay Beach, Bermuda; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Outer Banks, NC; Ochos Rio, Jamaica; Santa Monica, California; Cozumel, Mexico; La Jolla, San Diego; Carolina Beach, North Carolina; Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

Before I started pouring the sand into the cute heart bottle someone gave me, I lined up my containers of sand to compare the color and texture.  The more contrast in the color or texture, when you are layering, the better your sand art will look.   I used a funnel to slowly direct the sand into the bottle.  

Be careful handling the bottle when it is not completely filled.  Unfortunately, my bottle was not filled by the time we had to move from New York to North Carolina.   I tried to hold onto it as best as I could but the sand shifted around towards the top and the sand from Mexico and San Diego blended together.  

I am excited about making my next bottle but I need a lot more sand and to find a cute bottle for it.  Guess I will have to go on more beach vacations!

Bottle Two

I knew I wanted my second bottle of sand to be the largest bottle in my sand/shell display. I saved up more than enough sand for it.

I lined up all these bottles and bags in the order of how I wanted to add them into my new bottle. I tried to make sure similar colors were separated by contrasting colors. 

 

This is the larger bottle I picked for my second sand art.

Now it was time to pour the sand. I used a measuring cup with a spout to put the sand from the bags into first then I used a funnel to get the sand into the small mouth of the bottle.

I made sure to write down where the sand came from before I poured it into the bottle. Starting from the bottom: (1) Rutherford Beach, Lake Charles, LA (2) Bimini, Bahamas (3) Gulf of Mexico, LA (4) Lake Michigan, Holland, MI (5) Big Sur, CA (6) Clearwater Beach, FL (7) Great Sand Dunes NP, CO 

(8) Miami Beach, FL, (9) Shell Key Preserve, FL (10) Vero Beach, FL (11) Rivera Beach, FL (12) Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

This is the finished project.

I like how it looks with the other sand/shell bottles.

And I love how it looks in my beachy bathroom!

Read this post to find more ideas for using your vacation finds.

Decorating With Vacation Memories

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What do you do with the sand you bring back from your beach vacations? Please share in comments!