BANGOR, Maine — A pretty effort to reuse and recycle what is taken from the sea.
"It starts out kinda gross cause we have to take raw lobster shells, basically things that people have discarded, and clean them, and then from that point on once they are clean and dry, we chip em," Amy Douglass, Maine Shellware artisan said.
Amy Douglas and Nicole Klam stop at McLaughlin Seafood in Bangor, to get buckets of lobster shells, that the store would have thrown right into the trash if it wasn't for these ladies that come and pick the lobster shells up to create their unique pieces.
"And they knew that we do our own fresh-picked lobster meat here so they stopped in and asked what we do with our shells and we said.. well we throw them away!" Emily McLaughlin, the McLaughlin Seafood store manager said.
"Cutting boards, to travel mugs, to cribbage boards, to coasters, a whole line of jewelry," Klam said.
You name it, they'll make it!
It's a craft Nicole Klam has been doing for 13 years.
"With creative brains, sometimes like you can't fall asleep because you are just trying to think of new ideas and new inspirations," Douglass said.
Inspirations that these ladies get from mother nature when the walk down the beach.
Chips she and Nicole Klam use to make and sell their handmade creations in stores and shops across New England.
"Sometimes a lot of places will dump it back to the ocean and that's not good," Douglass said.
"I had taken a real fondness to mix recycling with creating," Klamm said.
In the greater Bangor area, some of the stores that sell their creations include Rebecca's, The Not So Empty Nest, Tiller & Rye, The Natural Living Center, Willie Waggs, The Grasshopper shop at the Bangor International Airport and McLaughlin's Seafood.
In Portland, you can go to Maxwell's Pottery, Company C, Nonesuch Books, to name a few.
"Anybody can literally take home a piece of the coast with them," said Douglass.
Art and Sea in Harmony... the slogan they use that clearly represents them.
"It still doesn't feel like what was my dream is now a reality," said Klam.