The Beach Sand Jar Project
As anyone who's scrolled through Pinterest knows, some of those DIY craft projects can result in hilarious Pinterest Fails. But here's one that I attempted with fantastic success and which has been a highlight of my summer thus far.
Behold, the Pinterest vacation beach sand jar idea:
Here's a few other Pinterest submissions I found while researching.
The concept is simple and cheap (free if you have an empty vase laying around). Scoop sand from every beach you visit, pour into a jar, add label. Easy enough, right? No crazy supplies. No mess. Low effort. High potential rate of success. We decided to put it to the test.
Mike and I began the project in January 2017. The rules are simple: For every beach we visited, we'd bring one water bottle and fill it with sand from the beach. Obviously, we'd drink the water too because hydration is important, especially in hot weather. Just thought I'd add that in. DRINK MORE WATER PEOPLE. Also, we agreed to only collect sand from beaches we went to together. If only one of us had a beach day alone or with our friends, no dice. Had to be a team effort. As far as what counts as a beach, any sandy embankment along a body of water counts. Coastal beaches, lakes, and ponds are all valid. And finally, one sand submission per beach. No duplicate entries.
With that, we set off on our quest for relaxation, DIY crafts, and trendy home decor. Our journey is documented below:
Crane's Beach, Massachusetts| February 25, 2017.
Key Biscayne, Florida| March 9, 2017*
*Fun fact: if you pack a bottle of beach sand in your carry-on, you get flagged by airport TSA during screening and have to pull the bottle out so they can test the sand for bomb-making residue.
Hampton Beach, New Hampshire| June 10, 2017
Rye Beach, New Hampshire| June 17, 2017
Walden Pond, Massachusetts| June 25, 2017
Our progress, as of mid-year.
We decided now was a good time to start pouring the sand into the jar and see if our craft experiment would work as Pinterest assured us it would. The first step was to procure a good, tall, heavy glass vase. World Market supplied the perfect vessel for $14.
Now for the sand. Me, being the OCD type, pulled out a Pyrex measuring cup and measured off one cup per bottle so the sand layers would be even. This also insured that, in the event of a failed sand jar, we'd still have half a bottle left from each to try again.
After careful measuring, we faced the most difficult task of all: ordering. Natural inclination would lead most to pour the sand in chronologically by date of collection, starting with the first bottle (February) and progressing with the next, all the way through June. But our concern was that some of the sand didn't appear to have much contrast. Crane's Beach sand looked a lot like Key Biscayne sand, even though they came from opposite ends of the country. So we made a judgement call. We'd order the sand non-chronologically so that each layer would provide color contrast with the next. Not the way my OCD would prefer but it proved the best course of action, as you can see:
The layers are as follows (from top to bottom):
Key Biscayne, FL
Walden Pond, MA
Crane's Beach, MA
Rye Beach, NH
Hampton Beach, NH
The project is a success! So far, anyway. The end result is outstanding. We were really surprised that two beaches (Hampton and Rye) could have such different colored sand despite being roughly a mile apart from one another. Crane's Beach had the finest, most powdery sand thus far. Hampton won for most pebbly texture. Walden Pond had a beautiful yellow composition. Rye had the darkest colors.
Here's the full jar, half filled with half a year's vacations. It's truly beautiful to behold. I love looking over at it each day and just remembering all the fun beach days we've had. And planning all the beach days we'll go on the rest of the year.
I haven't added sticker labels yet and I'm not sure if I want to, or if I want to just type them out on one strip of paper and tape it to the back. Not sure yet. I'll post an update towards the end of the year and hopefully we'll have filled the jar! Maybe I'll throw a tea light candle on top and start another jar for 2018. One day we could have a whole shelf of sand jars, proof that we are vacation superheroes.
