sand display from beach vacations

I love beach vacations. I love sand, I love shells, I love the ocean. This idea came from a visit to a teacher across the hall. She has this bookshelf in her room that is lined with jars of all sizes filled with sand. When her students go on vacation they bring back sand, I guess because the rock cycle is part of fifth grade curriculum. Now I knew what to do with the sand that I collect from our vacations.

The display came together mostly from items I had around the house. The box was an organizer of some sort that a teacher was throwing out; of course I had to have it because it reminded me of the antique wooden letterpress boxes that I haven't figured out what to do with. In lieu of a hodge podge of jars, I opted for a couple spice jars from the Crate & Barrel outlet. I think they're less than $2 each, and because they were now purposeful I had to buy more on a later visit to the outlet. The vellum tags I had to go out and buy at Target as a pretty way to record the location and year of the beachy vacation. Lastly, I painted the back of the display box a blue that represents the ocean with leftover paint we had in the basement from when we did our living room.

I scattered some of my favorite shells among the spaces, and arranged everything in a random pattern. I love the empty spaces as much as the filled ones because they are a reminder of beautiful things to come. If you can't find something to work as a display box, this sand collection would look lovely lining a shelf, window sill, dresser, or mantel.