Weird Beach Day

Today was a weird day at the beach sort of... it started raining last night and rained until this morning... thought I would skip the beach today but then it cleared up and the sun was shinning. I took that as a sign, I did take my rain coat as it only seems to rain on me if I am at the far end of the beach with no rain coat. I am glad to report that not only did I make it all the way down but all the way back with no rain.. even had some beautiful sunshine!

I got down there and the tide was just starting to go out, which is perfect, well any time at the beach is perfect... this just assures me I can spend more time there :) I started down the beach looking for treasures... was a bit dark out but there were some beautiful things on the beach today. Only found one agate but it was a big one and has a cool white streak through it.. not sure what it is.. but it looks great. I also found a small ( dime size ) pink sea glass heart... treasures!

I saw a beautiful star pink star fish being left behind by tide and then as I went to grab some seaweed to stick over it (to hide it from the seagulls so they do not peck at it) one seagull flew right up and grabbed it.. the whole thing.. and then just sat there with it in his mouth.. no way he can swallow that.. and he has no teeth. I gave him a strict talking to about eating things that have no brains and that do not even stand a chance of getting away from him.. and of "eating" something he is not even going to be able to eat. Then I headed down the beach a bit further.

I did not go very far that direction because it includes some climbing over trees and I was just not in the mood today so I headed back to the dock. I passed the seagull again... he is still sitting there with the star fish hanging out of his mouth.. it has gone limp and now I am thinking he just sits there and waits for it to go all soft so he can fold it up and swallow it maybe.. I have no clue.. can not even imagine it in his tummy.

I walked past the dock/road home and down a little further since I saw a friend with her dog out... visited with them for a few minutes then headed back to the dock and headed home. As I get closer I notice there is a woman there, one I saw the other day for the first time. I smiled and said hi.. she gave me a funny look, I asked how she was doing, she turned around.. put her hand on her hip and said... "are you always here?" I said "not every day but a few times a week for sure" ok this is where it gets really good... she said to me " I really wish you would not come beach combing here ALL the time it leaves nothing for the rest of us" I am pretty sure that starfish would have fit in my mouth at this time ( if the seagull would have shared ) as I am sure my bottom jaw hit the ground. I do not know this lady and was not sure if she was joking or what was going on. She then says to me "I drive all the way out here from Stanwood (neighboring town) and thanks to you it is a wasted trip I am sure" ok so I sort of laughed.... she had to be joking right???? She says "this is not funny, this is a public beach and you are hogging it" I told her I was very sorry she was not finding the beach to her liking.. but that it is NOT a public beach.. that it is in fact private.. and that I DO have beach rights because I DO live here... and not only that but I DO have permission for the owners of the surrounding beaches and that is how I know where the good stuff is because they have shared with me. I then explained to her that she might want to check out one of the local state parks.

I am so not sure what her issues where... there are about 4 or 5 of us that walk on the beach regularly looking for treasures and none of us have ever had a shortage of things to find. Sometimes 2 or 3 of us will walk together and we are all able to find lots of goodies. In fact most often the best pieces are often found on the way back... walking in the sand stirs things up and often uncovers the best. I am sure this person is not very mentally stable...in the end I was not sure if I wanted to laugh or cry.. the beach is plenty big enough for all of us.... sharing it is one of the joys.

My First Collection

I guess I should start with what a collection is, and where and why. A collection is a group of items that have a theme that I have picked from artfire. It is a way to promote other sellers on artfire and a way to show off some things I have found that I like.

This is my first collection and I titled it ILY ASL which is I Love You! American Sign Language!

I found a lot of fun items on artfire that are in American sign language and are the ILY hand sign.

Having Gone through Seattle Central Community College and the interpreting program there and having spent a lot of time in the deaf community ASl has always been a big part of my life. All of my children signed long before they would talk and my daughter still signs very fluently.

I would love it if you would take a minute and visit the collection ( Click "View Collection" on the right hand side to see the full collection ) and check out these fun and awesome items. Clicking on the items themselves take you to that persons shop and you can explore more of their items. Leaving comments at the bottom of the collection is always welcomed.

ILY ASL

Curated By: MichelleBallard

ArtFire.com

Handmade Soap

Thank you,

~Michelle

New Creations

I had some ideas the other day on something I could do with the sea glass I find while walking on the beach. I wasn't sure it could be done and if it could I was not sure it would be something I could do. So I started looking for videos about different things on youtube to see if I could find anyone else doing it. There are people doing it but no videos about them that I could find. I did find some other videos about things that had to do with it so I watched as many as I could. I also talked to Dave since he had some experience with the type of thing I wanted to do. After all of that I was thinking that it was something I wanted to try and at least see if I can do it.


Now to find a place to buy the supplies... hmm.. craft store... no... hardware store.. no... a stained glass store.. yes. I needed copper foil tape... what size or color backing I had no idea.. so I bought the stuff the lady said would work great.. turns out it is not so great for everything I want to do.. but I am guessing she had not used real sea glass.

I want to wrap each piece of sea glass in this foil tape and solder around the outside so that it is then wrapped in a pretty silver casing and solder on a jump ring. This sounds so easy.. and watching the videos of people making memory pendants it looked super easy. One thing I did not take into account is that the sea glass is not square or flat or even the same thickness on one side as the other. I also had no experience soldering. In the videos.. they make it look super easy... you just "paint it on" not me... well not when I started... I was going for the "painted on" look.. but was using the dab at it and poke method and it was not working so well.

This was my first attempt... I was so proud of it... now I am embarrassed lol

I have now made a whole lot of pendants... and can really tell a difference from the ones I first made and the ones I am making now. I have learned a lot too... and I see the door open for learning so much more. I need to try some different types of copper tape.. I read there is a black backed one for using with clear glass... I am going to try that next. I have a lot of white pieces of sea glass and the copper tape gives the pieces almost a pink color.. which is beautiful.. but not a true color of the glass. It seems to me that black would show up even more than copper... but I have been told it wont... we shall see :)

I have started listing some of the items in my shop and hope to be listing more soon.

~Michelle

The Beach

"I am not afraid of storms: For I am learning how to sail my ship."Author: Eleanoor Roosevelt

In every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth. - Rachel Carson

"Ocean treasures left on the shore, Nature's gift to adore"

Author: unknown

"The tide always turns"

Author: unknown

"The voice of the sea speaks to the soul"

Author: Kate Chopin

I Did it... Almost

Today I started the second week of the "Couch to 5K" running plan. It is taking me a bit longer to get from one week to the next... so many things happen everyday and getting a schedule going is hard for me. We have 4 day weekdays and 3 day weekends around here.. to keep things balanced I really should be walking on one of the weekend days. I should have at least walked yesterday but I had some paperwork I HAD to get finished and I was just too focused on that. ( I now think if I had walked the paperwork might have gone better ) I seem to have a lot more energy after walking for the rest of the whole day... better than a nap by far.

So today I get on the treadmill and am pretty sure I am not going to be able to do the second week plan.. which is run 90 seconds/ walk 2 minutes, after having so many days off.. but I decided to give it my best and I was very surprised. I was able to do most of the running for 90 seconds.. there were a couple I cut short but they were all close but the last one.. it was just over 60 seconds. I think I did hear a couple of bad words a few times but I had the doors and windows shut so no one heard but me. Would have helped a bit if the music had been a bit better. Most the time I just turn on one of the music stations on the tv.. and have had pretty good luck.. but today I had the slowest songs.. they were just blah with nothing. I am going to need to work on getting some regular music set up.

~Michelle