I love sea shells! Just like many of you, I often go to the beach and spend hours collecting nature’s little treasures. We carefully wash them and bring them home filled with ideas as to how they will make our home feel like a little slice of vacation. Then the weeks slip by and the shells start collecting a little dust and we begin to forget why it is we spent all that effort bringing them home.

There are actually a lot of ideas as to what you can do with seashells. One very easy and popular one is to take a clear hurricane-type glass vase, fill the bottom with sand, stack a nice layer of shells on top and then fill it with water. It’s like an ocean diorama right there on your dining room table. With results like that, you can be proud of yourself! You used those shells and made something quite pretty your guests will marvel at when they visit your home.

But then a few days go by and you notice that the water is looking a little murky. Heck, it might even be growing a little science experiment! I noticed this in my own vases and immediately replaced the water and thought myself very clever by adding a little bit of bleach to the mix. I thought that would stop things from growing and keep my water clear. It did stop things from growing but the water actually had an odd look to it. It was a little cloudy and dingy, instead of the crystal clear water I had hoped to achieve.

I didn’t want to mix anything else with bleach so I emptied the water again and gave a little more thought to the problem. Then, the answer came to me one evening when I was adding chemicals to our hot tub — Spa Clarifier! I added about a tablespoon to each of my vases and waited a few days to see the effects. Two weeks later, the water is still crystal clear and my sister-in-law from Florida just asked me what I added to my water to make it stay so clear! Problem solved!