After a visit to the Alabama coast a few weeks ago, I decided to use some of the driftwood and shells that I brought back home for a nature craft. I’ve made a few shell mobiles before with small shells but this time I wanted to use large pieces of driftwood and bigger shells–cockles, oyster, arks, and clams. I had found quite a few with holes–most beachcombers only want whole shells so the ones with holes almost always get left behind–which worked very nicely with what I planned to do with them.
I went out to my husband’s shop where there are drawers upon drawers of every imaginable kind of hardware. Luckily for me, he is very organized and has labeled each drawer with what it contains. I had no trouble finding some sturdy screw hooks to use as hangers for the driftwood. Back in my craft room, I found a roll of fishing line and then lined up all of the hole-y shells on the table to make sure I had enough to make two mobiles. I figured with one large cockle shell at the top and two smaller shells hanging below it, that would be plenty for one strand. One piece of driftwood was smaller than the other one so it would have three shell strands and the larger piece would have five.
Attaching the screw hooks into the driftwood wasn’t too difficult. The wood was relatively soft so my fingers worked the screw in initially and then I used needle nose pliers to finish off the job. After screwing in two hooks at each end, I then knotted the ends of a strand of fishing line to the hooks to form the loop that the mobile would hang from. Next was the fun part. I knotted one end of the fishing line to the first hook that the shells would be hanging from and then knotted the large cockle shell to the top of the line. I followed this with smaller shells–clams and arks–below it. Nice! I repeated this process two more times and voila: a beautiful finished shell mobile for my yard!
The larger mobile was a bit harder to manage since it required five strands of shells but it all came together nicely and I was able to take them both outside that evening to find the perfect spot to hang them. We have a trail across the front of our property that is lined with pine trees so I hung the smaller mobile at one end and then went back to the house to get the larger one to hang at the other end. I had left this one hanging by a celosia (cockscomb) plant that the insects have been going crazy over so when I came back to get it I noticed a bright green praying mantis on one of the cockle shells. I guess he/she had decided to investigate this new interloper and–not wanting to disturb him–I let him come along for a ride on the mobile to its new home under a large pine tree. Maybe he was able to make some new friends in this part of the yard!
