Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Tide Pools

This challenge is not to be confused with the Oldies but Goodies one which usually turns up here on Thursdays. When my friend Laney posted about the May challenge on the Art Elements site, I spontaneously decided to jump in as a guest, to inspire me and to give my blog a little kick, too.

The theme was Tidepools, and Lesley from the Art Elements team showed some beautiful inspirations to us in this post.

Now for the first surprise - I'm not really a beach girl. I don't live anywhere near the sea and I am not the sort of person that goes ooh and aah when they see a sandy beach with palms.

It's not as if I have never been on a beach, though. An absolutely obligatory part of each trip to the Bay Area for example was one day on a particular beach. We are not talking beautiful sand and deep blue ocean here. We are talking the kind that overwhelmed me because all you could see was water and all I could think about all the fascinating and terrible creatures that may be out there. I can always blame "Jaws" for that feeling (even though it's an old favorite of mine, "Jaws", not the feeling). While I wouldn't have readily jumped into the ocean for that very reason, I really enjoyed the rest - looking for nice shells, walking in the shallow water, trying to defend our picnic from the seagulls.

Of course there were other beaches, too.

And there was the beach in Wales we never found. I still think they put that sign up to lure us into that field with the big herd of cows to get trampled. No, seriously, we just didn't find the way after trying this path and that road and finally we headed back and ended up in a tea room instead. Not the worst alternative if you ask me. It was so hot that day, I couldn't have walked another step, not for the most beautiful beach in the world!

I can't even say if I have ever seen a tide pool with my own eyes although I had a very clear idea of it. I immediately knew I wanted to put something on a bead loomed bracelet base in one of my favorite colors, gunmetal AB. Of course there's only so much space on a bracelet and I had to decide what to put on it.

This is the result.

The green seaglass comes from a Danish beach. A friend brought it home for me. The little snail shells and the sea shell are from Italian and Greek beaches and were a gift from a co-worker. And of course there had to be pearls to kind of tie all of those elements together and a mix of grey lined and metallic ice blue seed beads to hold them down.

There are so many talented people who are a part of this blog hop, I hope you'll take the chance to see what they created. I'll do my best to catch up this weekend.

And a big thank you to Art Elements for letting me participate as a guest!

Guests

Raven - Kelly - Kathy - Tammy - Alyson - Elaine - Mischelle - Deborah - Anita - Jill - Shirlee - Sarajo - Melissa - Jenny

AE Team Members

Caroline - Cathy - Claire - Jen - Laney - Lesley - Marsha - Niky - Sue  - Lindsay - Jenny