Brighton Beach Lamp

Despite having 3 children, 2 cats, 1 goldfish and a fiance all crammed into a flat in London I am a firm believer that there is a place for everything and everything has it's place! So on a recent trip to Brighton with our 4 year old I was a little alarmed that he had decided to collect shells from the seafront. 
Wondering where on Earth these new additions to our ever expanding household would go it struck me that other than the usual combination of shells, photo frames and tons of varnish, there must be some crafty project that we could come up with to give these shells a place in our home.

After racking my brains trying to come up with an idea for these shells in dawned on me that we could probably make some kind of a lamp. As these shells were the property of my 4 year old (which he frequently reminded me) I knew that this lamp would have to be suitable for him so straight away we knew candles were out of the question.

Sooooooo, 24 hours later the idea for the Brighton Beach Lamp was born.

I started off with a vase I had recently bought in TKMaxx, some play sand (which is non toxic and child friendly) and 2 sets of battery operated fairy lights from the Poundshop and of course not forgetting Samuel's shells from the beach!

I used all of the sand to fill about 1/4 of the vase

I then used one set of the fairy lights to put on top of the sand and around the inside of the vase.

After washing and cleaning all of the shells(and we still can't quite shake the 'fishy' smell!) I put some of them around and on top of the first set of fairy lights.

Then I placed the second set of fairy lights on top of the shells and again around the inside of the vase.

Then I used the remaining shells and arranged them on top of the fairy lights and tidied up the wires and loosely wrapped them around the base of the vase.

The only thing I think I would have done differently is allow Samuel to collect more shells to fill up the vase more.

In the evening when it's nice and dark,we snuggle down to watch a movie we switch on our Brighton Beach lamp which takes pride of place in our lounge.

M xxx