Giant Sand Dollar

I saw this giant sand dollar in Pottery Barn and I just fell in love...but not with the price tag. $100 seems pretty steep to me.

Crafts by Amanda has a great tutorial of how to create a giant sand dollar for pennies on the dollar.  She was not trying to duplicate the sand dollar but to use it as inspiration.  I think I can duplicate it by doing without the black and yellow paints:

On the plus side, not only is it inexpensive, it's also really lightweight.

Sand Dollar Pillow

I loved this pillow and thought it would look great in a coastal or beachy casual living room.  There are several motifs but I really liked the sand dollar.  No way I am paying $40-$74 for a decorative pillow no matter HOW cute I think it is.  Here is the inspiration from wabisabigreen.com:

There is a blue one as well, but I rather like the muted sand tone of this one.  The write of craftsandsutch.com came up with this no sew, diy option.  I love this and it would work with any motif:

http://www.craftsandsutch.com/2011/05/no-sew-bleached-sand-dollar-pillow.html

Pennies on the dollar and it looks terrific.

Snow globe pendant

I saw this beautiful pendant on etsy (which of course means it was created by someone and not mass produced).  I really liked this and would like to make a few of them this next Christmas ...never hurts to plan ahead :D.  Here's the inspiration:

Now, I know nothing about resin nor how to work with it, but I thought I would some translucent clay like from Sculpy or Lumina that air dries.

and this mini winter tree stamp:
which I found here: http://www.rubberstamptapestry.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=winter+oak

I figure I can roll out and bake the disk, stamp on the design in white and sprinkle some 

glitter on for the snow effect.

Inspiration Knock-Off Inspiration

So what I am trying to do if for no one else other than myself, is to find an inspiration and then the solve the problem of how I can obtain the same vision without spending a fortune.  Some of this will be by finding a designer inspiration knock-off at a less price elsewhere and the other will be to create the inspiration with my own two hands and a bit of creativity.  If anyone actually looks at this, enjoy and feel free to steal some inspiration!