Beach Souvenir

Last month, we took a trip to the other side of the world! Over the span of two weeks, we visited the city of Tokyo, Boracay Island (in the Philippines) and Manila, Philippines.   We returned home just two weeks before the hurricane hit the southern provinces of the country.  Many are enduring hardships as the provinces try to recover.  Fortunately,  the friends we made in Manila are okay as the worst weather did not go through the north.

Before the trip, I got a request from a coworker to bring back sand.   He has started collecting it from various places and it’s the one thing he asks of anyone traveling to a beach destination.   I didn’t want to add to the pile of Ziploc bags he has in his office so I came up with another way to deliver his souvenir.  I put the sand we grabbed, from White Beach on Boracay Island, in a narrow glass bottle and was excited to use my Martha Stewart etching kit to customize it!    I purchased the bottle for $3 from the Container Store, but I’ve seen similar items in Marshalls and HomeGoods.

I placed the stencils on the glass bottle, spelling out ‘Boracay’, and brushed the etching cream on.  Since the word has two A’s and I only had one letter A stencil, I just used another letter as a placeholder.

Using the container to identify where the sand came from just made it seem a little more special than handing over sand in a flimsy plastic bag.

I left the etching cream on for about 30 minutes and then washed it off.   I used a funnel to pour in the sand, corked it, and tied a ribbon at the top – super-duper easy.  And this idea can be used for other handmade gifts,  homemade limoncello maybe?
-J