At first glance, Amy Ramsey's images of fanciful animals surrounded by flowers and foliage seem like crewel embroidery. But look more closely and you realize her art isn't made of thread but of hundreds of tiny shells glued on a fabric-covered surface. She uses these little sea treasures, with their glistening colors and ornamental shapes, to create a whimsical universe linking nature and art. Who would guess that a butterfly's wings are coquina shells, a snowflake is made of sand dollars' teeth, or that a lion could flaunt a mane of seaweed?

Ramsey, a self-taught shell artisan from Virginia, is continuing a family tradition begun nearly 50 years ago by her grandmother Helen Coolidge Woodring, wife of Harry Woodring, a former governor of Kansas and the U.S. secretary of war from 1936 to 1940. Affectionately known as "Nana," Woodring was an accomplished artist who painted portraits of members of Congress. She developed a passion for shell art when her sister, a conchologist, gave her some colorful shells that she couldn't resist working with.

As a child, Ramsey took little interest in her grandmother's shellwork. But seven years ago, encouraged by her mother, she began making her first shell picture using shells from Nana's superb collection. "Working with shells relaxes me and makes me happy," says Ramsey, who, like her grandmother, has won several prizes at the Shell Fair and Show, held each March on Sanibel Island, Florida. It's the largest exhibition of its kind in the United States.