Beach Zen Garden

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram then you know that I just finished a brief vacation in Monterey. It is good to be home and to have access to my craft supplies again, but honestly I miss Monterey very much. The vacation was greatly needed and I have returned to real life feeling inspired. My mind has been racing with all of my ideas for projects inspired by Monterey or travel. I have also been obsessing over Pinterest so I will be sharing some boards with you, as well as some projects I have modified from existing pins. I have so much work to catch up on from being gone, but I couldn't wait to start my first project: a Beach Zen Garden. I miss Monterey: the sand, the shells, the water, and the wildlife. Before I left I knew that I wanted to make a beach scene, but I honestly wasn't sure if that would be a zen garden or a shadow box of my trip. Again, I obsessed over Pinterest, which gave me some ideas, although I didn't find exactly what I was looking for. With the ideas I did have, I made sure to take lots of photos and collect shells in Monterey. When I came home I had a much better idea of what I wanted to create and using existing supplies, with a few additional purchases, I created my own version of Monterey or a Beach Zen Garden. 

I apologize this isn't much of a tutorial, but I created this project quickly and honestly it was fairly easy to make. If you want to make your own beach zen garden, then the supplies you need are:

• A wooden tray or some other container to hold your garden; Hobby Lobby sells ready-to-finish wood trays for $4.99.
• A lid to a cardboard box, unless you don't mind your sand going everywhere. I used the lid to a See's Candy 1/4 lb box.
• Sand, which can be purchased at Hobby Lobby or collected from a beach trip.
• Rocks, shells, and any other natural embellishment. I already had the rocks, I collected the shells, and then bought a few more at Hobby Lobby. The shells I collected from my trip were mostly broken pieces so I supplemented them with nicer looking shells.
• Popsicle sticks, I used the standard craft kind and was able to buy a pack of 50 from Walmart for $0.88. I only needed 23 so it worked out perfectly.
• 2 plastic trays, I already had these plastic storage trays that I purchased from Target 2 years ago. I used plastic trays because they actually contain water, but if you used a resin to recreate the look of water then you could use any container you wanted. 
• Pictures of the ocean floor or the bottom of a tide pool. I used a picture I took from my trip. I printed out the picture on regular printer paper, cut out, and glued to the bottom of the containers.
• A glue stick and E6000 glue to glue the pictures and to assemble the pier.

Normally when I am working on a project, but am not 100% about how I want it to look I draw my idea on paper and then am able to tamper with the final layout. This time I chose not to draw the layout and instead dove right in, which didn't seem to hurt the final outcome. I started with the first water container and placed it into my tray where I wanted the "ocean" to be located. I then found the lid to a box that fit into my tray and the space I wanted the "beach" to occupy. The beach was going to be larger, but the only lid I could find was half of the size so I had to improvise. I filled the lid with Kinetic sand that I already had. I planned on collecting sand in Monterey, but I didn't think about it while I was there. Kinetic Sand is great for this project because it stays clumped together and is easy to shape into the beach you want. I then placed the shells into the sand. 

Originally, I was going to use the smaller container to hold a Bonsai tree, but then I read the instructions for a grow-your-own Bonsai tree kit, again something that I already had, and it said the tree needed to be directly in the sun. I didn't intend for my beach zen garden to be sitting in direct sunlight or on a window sill so I had to scrap that idea. Before I decided to scrap the idea, I began gluing rocks to the edge of the small container using E6000 glue. Since I was already committed to the small container being covered in rocks, I decided to make a tide pool for my beach zen garden. It didn't turn out exactly as I intended, but it works for now. The great thing about assembling this zen garden in pieces is that I can redecorate it as many times as I want. 

I waited until everything was in place before I decided to glue pictures to the bottom of the containers, which I don't recommend doing because I almost destroyed my pier. So before you add your pier make sure you have glued on the pictures you want to the bottom of your containers. Then you can add your pier. I made the pier using Popsicle sticks glued together with E6000 glue. This took some time and was a bit messy. I cut pieces of Popsicle sticks and glued to the bottom of the pier to make legs. You can't see the legs, but they made the pier more secure in the tray. I took 3 Popsicle sticks glued together and glued them to the top of the pier to fill in the gap between the tray and the sand. I found this little wood boat and Hobby Lobby and I thought it would be a perfect addition to my garden. Unfortunately, it was bigger than I wanted it to be in the garden, but I think I will leave it, at least for now. I also added a sea otter magnet that I purchased in Monterey and thought the star fish looked cute placed on top, almost as if he was holding it. 

What is your favorite beach activity? What are some of your other favorite vacation spots? I would love to hear about your travel adventures and to get ideas about where I should travel next!