Mourning the Small, Purple, Right-Sided Coquina

So the second shipment of coquina from a second vendor came in and i still do not have the correct coquinas for kayleigh's valentine. aaaah! luckily for etsy.com browsers that love waterlilly shell flowers, i have plenty of material. ive sorted through some of the shells and found four that match. so i shall spend most of my time over the next several weeks sorting.

stay tuned, maybe there is a treasure trove inside those bags. or even just a cobbling together of just enough.

either is acceptable.

Way Back Machine: Grotto Style

while kayleigh's valentine patiently awaits more purple coquina, i dug into the way back image machine and found a few grotto projects i completed back in the day. working in grotto is rewarding. my modus operandi is to find a super inexpensive but useful object - usually at a garage sale or consignment store - and encrust it with gnarly oysters and weathered shells so that in the end it looks like something someone would drag up from the bottom of the sea. at first i glue gunned everything, but now its all about finding the right grout or epoxy. once things smooth out a little, i'll start working in grotto again. i find i need a large expanse of time and plenty of raw materials in order to come out the other side with an awesome project. i have plenty of candelabra that are awaiting...the large image is an encrusted heavy, cream-coloured enamel bowl. i can't bear to part with it, so you won't find it on etsy. boy1&2 have grabbed fruit from the bowl for so long that its become part of the household.

here is another project from the way back machine. i wouldn't consider it grotto, but it really doesn't fit my other styles. its another pet i can't bear to let go, since i think the shells add to the candle holder in such an organic way that you can't picture the candle holder without the shells. that's when i think i'm most successful. when the embellishment is one with the base.