Description: This altered canvas was made for Finallymama in a swap. This was my first altered anything and I had a blast making it!

The details:
- 8 x 10 canvas, background was cut from a single sheet of 12 x 12 from Paper House called Seascape. It's a paper version of a Renoir painting of the same name (how cool is that?). I used Mod Podge to glue it to the canvas & then covered it with MP.

- Large shells were (left side) were hand picked from a local beach. They were painted with Glass Finish by FolkArt paints (one of my fav products). I drilled small holes in them with my Dremel tool and attached them with natural jute, then braided it hoping it would look like rope.

- The verse was written by me :) Title: Serenity of the Sea...Standing on the ocean shore/I stretched my arms out wide/Lifted my face toward Heaven/And felt waves of peace fill my soul.

- The gull outline was printed out on heavy white cardstock, colored & painted with watercolor pencils.

- The small shells (bot right corner) came from a bag of crushed shells that I bought at a Big Lots store. I picked out the most colorful ones and glued them one by one. (tedious!) They were covered with Glass Finish to highlight their coloring.

- The line of sand is real sand from a local beach.

- The driftwood weaving consists of two small pieces of driftwood from the same local beach, covered with clear gloss, drilled with small holes. Natural colored raffia was threaded through the holes and the whole thing glued to the corner. Then I weaved white & dark blue heavy embroidery thread through the raffia. (kinda thought it looked nautical.)

- the whole thing was painted with a clear gloss.

Sorry if the upper part of photo is a bit blurry. I took over a dozen pics....shiny parts were creating a glare. TFL!