Anybody can make a lamp filled with shells, and there is nothing wrong with that! But if you want to try something a little different, try making our lamp with sand, shells, driftwood, and dried flowers. We think of it as beach cottage decor! Here are a couple pictures of the finished lamp - shown with a drum shade and with an empire style shade.





We’ll start with the empty jar and a small piece of styrofoam. Looks pretty bland, doesn't it! That’s OK - watch as we make our lamp step by step.



We took a variety of dried flowers and arranged them in what we thought was a pleasing design. In this case we used purple and lilac colored statice, a little bit of mauve caspia, some green caspia, and heather - erica deliciosa. It helps to put your arrangement in front of the glass jar to make sure it’s not too big for the jar.



It is easier to put the arrangement into the lamp with a skewer or some other sort of device to lower it in. Decide if you want to attach the styrofoam to the bottom of the lamp first. If you do, put some 2-sided tape or some glue onto the bottom of the styrofoam to hold it in place while you pour the sand in. If you use glue you will want to wait until it is dry before you put the sand in.



Time to add the sand. We have found that it helps to have something that will guide the sand to the bottom of the lamp, rather than just pour it in, as you can damage the flowers by pouring the sand right over them. We have rigged up a sort of funnel using a plastic bag with the tip cut off that is put into the jar, past the flowers and down to the bottom. You can continue to hold onto the skewer if you want to keep the styrofoam in place OR you can attach the styrofoam to the bottom of the lamp with glue or tape that you have put onto the bottom of the styrofoam to hold it in place while you pour the sand in. Here some of the sand has been poured in…



Enough sand to cover the styrofoam and a bit more.



Just arrange some shells in the bottom however you like. This is when it is fun to have some shells from a special trip to use here.



We put some light green and dark green reindeer moss in the bottom. It is not necessary, but we think it looks nice! It always looks more natural when you have a couple of different colors if you can. We added a piece of driftwood in the back of the design, inserting it into the sand.



We also added some small stones and a few more small shells. We tried to pick some shells with some purples to go with the flowers. At the end we added another small piece of driftwood. Here is a closeup shot.



If you like, you can make your beach decor lamp without using the styrofoam.

• Pour the desired amount of sand into the bottom of the lamp.
  
  
• If you are going to use reindeer moss, put some onto the sand now.
  
  
• Next place your shells into the lamp in a pleasing arrangement.
  
  
• Push dried flowers into the sand around the shells, or, if you'd like, you can put the flowers in and then put the shells down. Of course it gets a little tighter inside the lamp when you put the shells in after you've added the dried flowers.

Here is an example of a lamp created this way. Notice that the flowers don't come from the middle and spread outward as the mauve/purple lamp did.





Above all, enjoy making something you will LOVE! You can’t get it wrong!