Goodnight Sand Dollars

Have you ever been lucky enough to find a sand dollar on the beach?

As kids, my sisters and I spent many barefoot hours hoping to find just one.

Well, we sure made up for that over this Labor Day weekend...

DH and I spent the last long weekend of summer at our favorite Maine campground, Searsport Shores, on a site looking over the beach. This was the first time that my sister, Andi, came camping with us (that's her on the raft, on the very right, with Nancy to her left, and me, the big sister, supervising) and we wanted to make this trip special for her. Well, it was better than special...it was a weekend of pure magic.

We found over 100 sand dollars on the beach in three days!



We got so excited that we went to look in our "magic river" at each low tide...

even late at night...donning silly light-up hats and an old flashlight.

We don't know if Hurricane Irene was responsible for bringing us so many sand dollars, but we prefer to think that our little sister, Nancy, who loved the ocean, might have had something to do with the magic we found.

When we got home Monday afternoon, we bleached the sand dollars and put them out in the sun to dry.

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Now we just have to come up with some unique ways to display so many sand dollars...anybody have some creative ideas to share?

It was sad saying goodbye to Searsport for another summer. As we drove away, I felt as if I was experiencing my own version of the favorite children's book, "Goodnight Moon". I guess my late summer version would have to go something like this:

Goodnight Searsport
Goodnight Moon
Goodnight campfires
And long days of June.

Goodnight bees...

Goodnight weavings in trees...

Goodnight goats...

And Goodnight knit things made from your coats.

Goodnight sailboats...

Goodnight garden...

Goodnight lobsters...

And Goodnight skunk!


Goodnight marshmallows
Goodnight Hershey bars
Goodnight sea glass...

And Goodnight tea in jars.

Goodnight ocean
Goodnight tides
And Goodnight to campers all cozy inside.

Goodnight kayaks...

Goodnight swing...

Goodnight sand dollars
And Goodnight summer things.


On the last morning of our trip, Andi gave me a gift she had chosen for me before we left home...

How could she have guessed how perfect this would be after our magical sand dollar weekend?

And we noticed these......

the first red leaves of fall... reminding us to treasure these summer-sister-sand dollar memories through the cold winter to come.

Goodnight friends.

I am linking this late-summer post to:
Wow Us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style
White Wednesday at Faded Charm
Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer
Nifty Thrift Tuesday at Coastal Charm
Sister Sunday at Sisters of the Wild West

Paint Sticks and Pumpkins

Before we head out for another camping trip next week, I've been working on our perennial gardens here at the "farm".  Since DH sometimes gets carried away on his new John Deere and forgets that my perennials are there, I discarded my little white plastic garden markers for these...good old-fashioned paint sticks. They're sturdy, hard to knock over, readily available, and...

You can easily correct your spelling on them.

Since my day was focused on gardening rather than crafting, my "garden markers" are as basic as you can get...but you could make them even more visible (and a lot prettier in the garden) by painting them...

And who would have thought paint sticks could come in handy for indoor gardening too? You can find the directions for making this cute little paint stick planter here. It would be perfect  in a sunny fall window when it's time to move the plants indoors.

While I was out weeding near the garden shed...

and gluing the ears back on my garden bunny...

DH was using his chain saw to cut up some old dead trees in the woods. When stacking the wood, he found this nest. The birds had abandoned it and he knew that I wouldn't, so up onto the back porch it came. Now it joins the small pile of other items that I absolutely know I need but haven't yet quite figured out a use for...like the water wheel (see previous post!).

Maybe I'll save it for fall decorating and do something like this...an inspiration photo I had saved from an online Seattle newspaper article in 2009.

From paint sticks to pumpkins...sometimes creative thoughts just get ahead of me...even in the garden!

I'll be linking this post up to the following parties:

Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer

Thrifty Thursday at Tales from Bloggeritaville

Cottage Flora Thursday at Fishtale Cottage

Under $100 Linky Party at Beyond the Picket Fence

Catch As Catch Can at My Repurposed Life