We have about 4 huge Mason jars filled with shells! Living on Long Island it’s impossible to not collect shells! My girls literally collect buckets of them throughout the summer and of course every single one of them is special so how dare I ask them to leave some behind! Well, the other day I was very thankful that we did have many on hand as Mothers day and my fathers birthday was approaching and I wanted to leave something thoughtful on their graves to let them know we were there visiting. Every time we visit my mother- in- law the kids love leaving little rocks so this time they were excited to make something special to leave with her. I of course enjoyed painting some myself! My dad passed away very recently and his birthday was a perfect reason to decorate one for him too. Since his passing, a cardinal family visits us every day! And we know in our hearts that the male one represents my father,  the female represents my mother-in-law and the baby male cardinal represents our little Gabriel. You gotta have some kind of hope that it’s true! And I smile and say hello every day that I see them! Of course you can decorate these shells and place in your garden, or give it away as a gift. You can use them as a paper weight, or display them on a shell or in a jar.

Here’s what I used to make them:

1. Shells
2. Nail Polish. (I loved using this because it drys very fast and won’t get washed off in the rain, brushes were nice and small and no one fought over the brushes because each color had it’s own). I also had several Nail Art nail polish that I used to outline and add detail. You can also use permanent markers or any type of ink/paint that will not wash off.
3. Pencil (you can draw on the shell before you paint it
4. plastic table cloth to protect surface

When the shells were all painted, the kids wrote on them with permanent black markers. On the sunflower shell I wrote all of my mother- in- laws 9 grand children! As soon as we got to her grave the clouds opened and the sun stood over us!

Spring is right around the corner, and summer is not too far behind. If you’re like me, you’re starting now to collect some fun spring/summer activities to do with your kids. My kids loved making glittery, shimmery ice. We did this last summer for my daughters’ Frozen birthday party but, it’s fun to do anytime. The girls had just as much fun making the as they did playing with it. After our cubes were finished the kids used shaving cream to play along with the ice cubes. You can even do this in the winter and have the kids play with it in the snow. It will definitely last longer in the cold!

All you need is empty ice trays, the more the better!Several bowls to make different colored water. Food coloring, glitter ( They make edible glitter if you want to use the ice cubes for drinks, but we used regular craft glitter) and Ziploc bags to store the ice that is ready so that you can make more.We filled several bowls with water and added a a few drops of food coloring to each bowl to get the shade that we wanted. Then we sprinkled some glitter into the bowl, mixed it all up and using a turkey baster we filled up the ice trays and popped them into the freezer. That’s it! I let them sit in the freezer over night and ,when they were ready, the kids popped them out and into a ziploc bag and we placed them back into the freezer and used the empty ice trays to make some more.