Here is the finished product first. It will hang up nicely on the wall as soon as I mount the brackets. The wife loved it. I did this for Valentines day with sand from our favorite beach here on Oahu. It can be used to make any type of memento from the beach or kids handprints/footprints, initials, whatever you draw in the sand on the beach you can save forever. My wife even put a step by step on her blog about it (http://wildfairytale.com/)

Step 1: Pallet Box

I made a small box out of an old pallet.

Step 2: Lining

I lined the inside with some old weed blocker so the sand mixture wouldn't go through the cracks. (I am not sure if this step is completely necessary. The mixture ended up being thick enough to not seep through the cracks. So if you don't have really big gaps in your box you can probablly skip it.)

Step 3: Trimming

I trimmed the lining so it only covered the bottom. I didn't take a picture of it but i nailed in about 20 to 30 small nails on the bottom so the sand would have something to grip onto when I hung it on the wall.

Step 4: Mixture

I first poured the sand in the box to measure how much I would need and then dumped it all into the bucket with craft glue. (The kids jelped me get the sand so they could be a part of the project.)

Step 5:

I didn't know how much glue to add so I would keep adding it in until all the sand was coated after mixing. I think I used 6 bottles of white glue.

Step 6: Consistency

I made sure it had the consistency of peanut butter so that I could shape it. Add glue/sand as necessary.

Step 7: Pouring

I poured the mixture into the box and spread it out evenly over the bottom. If you look closely in this step you can see the nails I put in so the sand would hold onto the background.

Step 8: Smoothing

I smoothed the whole mixture out with a Spackle to give me a fresh writing surface.

Step 9: Almost Done

After I smoothed it all out I wrote our initials and inside a heart and let it sit out around 48 hours to cure and dry. You could probably bake it to dry faster but I don't know if it will shrink and crack.