Lavender Dreams & Sunshine Bliss

A few weeks ago Diane over at Lavender Dreams had a give away featuring jewelry made by Shanti over at Sunshine Bliss.  And I was one of the lucky winners!

I received this beautiful, and right up my alley, blue bracelet that is accented with a tiny turtle and seahorse.  It's made of recycled sea glass colored beads and lead free turtle and seahorse dangles.  The leather cord is a pretty blue and feels nice and sturdy.  It's also accented with a wave button.

When I received the package from Shanti, this is how it was wrapped....

Here's a few more photo's showing off the bracelet....

It lays exactly where I like it to fall on my wrist and it matches nicely with my silver bangle that I never take off and my blue ring.  It's a winner!!

Shanti has a FB page and an Etsy shop.  She has a wide variety of jewelry and I particularly liked the combination of blue and frosted blue beads that are in the bracelet I won.  Please check out her shop.

Many thanks again to Diane and Shanti for having such a fun give away!

More Turtle Shells

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the different treasures we find around Kentucky Lake.  If you missed that post, you can go back and read it here.  At the end of that week, we found 3 more turtle shells laying along shore.  All of them had dead turtles still stuck inside.  We took the turtle shells back to the lake house and placed them in the garden.  I put a bucket on top of them, and then a brick on top of the bucket so no wild animals would get to them.

Yesterday, just shy of 4 weeks, I went and checked them and all the turtle bits had been picked clean by the bugs.  I took the shells and dipped them in a little bleached water and then scrubbed them up with an old toothbrush.  Look at the nice shells I have now!

Treasures Are In the Eye of the Beholder

The other day when we were beach combing on the shores of Kentucky Lake, it got me to thinking about the different little "treasures" we find there.

We find a lot of sea glass, or maybe I should call it lake glass.  I was asked why we find so much of it here.  I mean, Kentucky Lake is not an ocean, so why do we find so much of it here?  There are actually only 2 specific beaches here that we seem to find it on.  At one time there were several different towns on the land where Kentucky Lake is now located.  Starting in 1938 they built the dam, emptied the towns and flooded the region to form Kentucky Lake.  I'm guessing that some of the glass is from the homes and businesses that used to be in this area.  Another possible explanation is that this is a very recreational lake.  There is a lot of camping on the shores, tons of boats on the lake, and lots of people who, unfortunately, toss their pop and beer bottles in the water.  At any rate, here's some (just a fraction) of the pieces we've picked up....

This next picture shows what looks a lot like an arrowhead, crinoids, (which we find by the hundreds) and a piece of quartz.....

The crinoids are interesting.  They are fossils and you can read about them here.  They look like little cheerios.              We take the crinoids and string them into necklaces, which we found out are actually called "St. Cuthbert's Beads."

We also find a lot of shells, although they aren't nearly as plentiful or as beautiful as the ones I find in Florida.  We still use them to decorate picture frames and wooden boxes....

We also find geodes on occasion.  It's fun to look inside them and see the tiny crystals.

But my absolute favorite find so far is this hunk of sea glass that my son found a couple of years ago.  I know the exact spot we were at when he found it and I can still picture him running out of the water, clutching it in his hand, so excited at finding this for me.    It's the bottom of a Diamond Crystal shaker salt jar, it's a beautiful green color and you can clearly read all the words....

We have gone back to that same spot numerous times, searching through the water, trying to find more, but so far, no such luck.  I just think it looks really cool.

I also like driftwood, so we made this with a couple of pieces and a huge clam shell that we found.....

Another favorite find is my turtle shells.  I placed a quarter there so you could get an idea of the size of them.  We found all of them around the lake, after the turtle had died, and in various states of decay.  We place them in the garden for a few months and let the ants pick them clean, then wash them up.  I love looking at them.

So there you have it - a glimpse at some of my treasures.  Some day I'm gonna be dead and gone and people are probably going to say "What the heck was she collecting all this crap for?"  LOL!  I don't care.  It's what I like, it's interesting.  I'll find stuff and then look it up on the internet and learn more about it.  I just never know what I'm going to find on my next little excursion around the lake.