More Vacation Art

Back in the day, I wrote about how Chris and I try to look for vacation art when we're traveling. Before, we would look for actual prints or paintings to frame when we returned home.  Now we're trying to get a little more creative with ways to incorporate our travels into our home decor.

That is a 4 x 6 frame for our gallery wall with a memento from San Antonio which holds a special place in our heart.  It's actually a magnet that we picked up for $4!  I was really excited about how it looks in the frame because of the added dimension from the floating mats and raised backing of the magnets.

On this past cruise we were on the look out to find something that could fill in one of the empty 5 x 5 opening frames that we have and decided on a shell coaster from Grand Cayman.  The size worked out perfectly, but the thickness of the shells... not so much.  I was so sure that I could make it work but alas, the sounds of cracking shells proved that I could not.

No fear, I was determined to do something with this!  I started to cut the coaster apart only to realize that the holes which held the shells together are very noticeable if I wanted to lay the shells flat.

Due to the holes and the amount of space I had between the frame glass and the backing I decided to just work with the little shells around the edge.  I played around a bit until I came up with a design that I was happy with.  Onto some left over scrap paper that I had on hand and this is the final product.

I wasn't sure if I really wanted to keep this color paper, so right now it's just tapped down instead of glued.  Once I finally make up my mind I'll glue it so the paper is flat.  The shells bring back memories of our cruise, as well as childhood memories when I used to collect shells from the shore.

Did you ever collect shells on the beach?