Vacation Ornaments

I've been on an ornament kick lately. 

First there was the pinecone map ornament. 

Then I did three more on the weekend.

I bet I could do 30 different posts on ornament ideas I have. 

Maybe next year I'll do a "30 days of" series.

Today I'm going to show you the clear glass vacation ornaments I made.

Backstory:

I collect sand from every beach vacation we take. 

I know people who collect sand from anywhere,

but I only collect it from places I've been to myself

and that have special meaning to me.

I have a window sill full of labelled jars from each vacation. 

I'm going to have to find a better place to display them

though as I've run out of space.

I bought some clear glass ornaments (with a 50% off

coupon of course) when I was at Hobby Lobby this summer.

 Going to Hobby Lobby was a huge deal for me as we don't have any in Canada.

Between that and The Christmas Tree Shoppe I felt like I was at Disneyland. 

I didn't notice that the balls were iridescent when I bought them. 

It makes it hard to show the different colours of sand.

Since Hawaii is our #1 favourite vacation spot, I started with that one.

I used sand from Lanikai Beach on Oahu. I carefully poured 

sand into the ornament and then added in some very small shells. 

I'm going to be honest here - the shells are from Prince Edward Island. 

I don't think I've ever seen shells in Hawaii. 

But I couldn't have an ornament with just sand in it. 

 I did print out a label with the place and date to put inside,

but I couldn't get it to lay properly without covering up the shells. 

Something I'll have to work on. 

I tried different ribbon combinations

but settled on using hemp twine to make a bow.

I also made one with sand from our trip to Cuba for my cousin's wedding. 

The sand was so soft and powdery. 

That trip was a lot of fun as there was a huge group of us

and it was Tom's & my first time in Cuba. 

Hopefully not our last.

The fourth one is from the sands at Basin Head

(Singing Sands Beach) in Prince Edward Island. 

The squeaking noise the sand makes when you walk on it is hilarious. 

You can even do it just by running your hand across it. 

We had so much fun watching the dogs try to figure out

where the sounds were coming from.

After finishing them I realized there wasn't enough variation

in the sand colours, so I emptied out the one from Hawaii

and used two other Hawaiian sands - from Black Sand beach (Punaluu) 

and Green Sand beach (Papakolea) - both on the Big Island.

Ahhh, that iridescence!  You can see me in every shot.

~~~~~~~

I'm linking up to these great parties this week!