Serendipitous Moment/Tutorial

As I was compiling my thoughts about my next blog entry one of my projects took a different turn which lead to this entry.

So here goes: As many of you know, I love Anthropologie. No, not the study of humankind (I do like to watch people though, so interesting, more about that later).

Anyway, I was perusing the Anthropologie website

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/index.jsp?cm_mmc=Google-_-Local+Business+Ads_West-_-anthropologie-_-Broad+Ad_2656200923%7C-%7C100000000000000053795&cm_guid=1-_-100000000000000053795-_-2656200923

and saw the pictures of some old bottles with shells on top of them. They are around $198-200ish. Although cool, way out of my budget.

Later that night I was messing around with ideas about my entry when I happened to place a shell on top of a little bottle-- a la Anthropologie. I loved it. So I quickly gathered together what I needed and whipped it up and I figured you could too. So here goes- your serendipitous tutorial.

The gathering:

1. Find a bottle and a shell that are proportionate. Meaning large bottle, large shell, small bottle, small shell. This doesn't have to be the case but the opening of the bottle or jar or whatever you use can't be too wide for the shell. Play around with your combos. You can get shells at craft stores.

2. At Michael's they have dollar bins and you can get a set of rubber letter stamps for just that, a buck.

3. Round up some distress ink

4. Hall out your glue gun.

5. Grab a piece of jute string. Pull it apart until its frayed.

*6. Optional-Rustle up some pepper corns if you want.

*7. Optional- Find items to go in bottle. Put them in the bottle. I just put some pieces of sea glass for color but you can use anything rocks, tiny notes, sand, or nothing at all.

Now you are ready.

First stamp your message on the shell. My shell was tiny so I used a four letter word. A clean four letter word, mind you. I have kids.

Next I jammed the glass fragments in the jar.

Then I hot glued a ring of glue around the bottom or top, which ever way you look at it, to the shell and placed the shell on the jar minus the lid of the jar. Then I wadded up the jute and used a Popsicle stick to jam it into the front of the jar while the glue was hot. I did this to cover the gap between the jar and the shell and liked it so much I added more jute to create a nest of sorts.

Then I looked at it and it begged for something else so I got into my spices and grabbed some green pepper corns. I think they look like eggs. I added them to the nest of frayed jute for extra pop.

Voila! Done. Your own work of art and it was not $198.

My serendipitous moment.