Sand Collection : Bringing Memories Home

 Our Sand Collection:

We are almost always sad to come home from a great vacation, and we have come up with lots of different creative ideas for bringing our memories home with us and making them a part of our home.  Our house is filled with things that remind us of our travels, but we don’t like to spend a lot of money on souvenirs.  We have some shelves in our living room that are filled with our sand and seashell collections.  They make me happy every time I look at them.

This is our sand collection.  I bought the glass vases from a local Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  I like supporting a great organization and getting a bargain at the same time!  They were each $1.00 or less, so I consider this to be an amazing souvenir bargain. Oh, and the sand was free.

I usually have some kind of water bottle or Ziploc bag with me wherever we go, so it is easy to grab a handful of sand & then label it so I don’t forget where it came from by the time I get home.  I have even shipped sand and shells home in a flat rate box from USPS if they are really heavy (ok, this makes it not free, but still).  Once I get home, I just pour it into the current vase with space, use a Sharpie glass marker to write where it came from, and enjoy another memory from a great trip!

It is never too late to start something like this.  I wish that I had started it years ago, but I didn’t think of it until we were in Hawaii in 2012.  I am glad that I went for it & have been doing it ever since.  I expect this collection to be huge by the end of the year…