Bring the Beach Home: Decorating with your summer findings
06.08.2008 03:01
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- Source: Home Envy
As many people do, I like to bring back mementos from my vacations. My favourite things to bring back are beach findings, because they can add a sense of serenity to any décor throughout your home or office. You can display your beach keepsakes all year long, in bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, on a console table in the front hall and even on the deck or porch. The examples that follow are all inexpensive ways of displaying items found while taking walks along the beach, such as seashells, sea glass, driftwood and skipping stones. Painted seashells: Paint ocean themes, like fish or lighthouses, on large clams or scallop shells. Use acrylic or Pebeo ceramic paints, or Krylon silver chrome paint for a modern look. Before painting, clean the shells so that they are free of debris and sand, then dry. Younger children can have fun drawing crabs or whales using Crayola Gel FX markers or Touch multi-surface paint. Glass containers and jars: Display your shell collections in elegant glass containers or simple Mason jars. For a personal touch, use a glass marker or paints to mark the date of your vacation directly on the jar. Small jars can also be filled with sand from the beaches that you visited. Baskets: For unique table or countertop accents, place a few seashells in baskets of assorted styles and sizes. Shells can be glued on the lids of small baskets. Centrepieces: Fill a large glass container or a bowl with a combination of shells and sea glass for a casual, serene presentation. Arrange candles of varying heights in a shallow container and fill the spaces with shells. Place smaller seashells around candles set on a dish. Arrange large shells in groups, or small shells in a larger scallop shell. Dinner parties: For a beach-themed outdoor dinner party, glue shells to napkin rings. Try putting place cards in scallop shells on your guests' plates for a subtle but chic touch. Sea glass (also known as beach glass): Clean sea glass with warm water and dish soap, and pat dry with a clean cloth. Sea glass in a kaleidoscope of colours placed in a glass dish creates a simply spectacular effect. For a centrepiece, put a few handfuls of sea glass at the bottom of a glass vase; add water, a few single-stem flowers and floating candles. Rocks: Create an inukshuk - a human figure made of rocks, originating in Inuit culture - out of beach stones for your home or cottage garden. When you're on vacation, your kids can make their own inukshuks directly on the beach. It will keep them entertained for a while, as they try to find the right balance of stones to keep the structure standing. Nicely shaped stones with a smooth finish make wonderful paperweights, and unusual rocks look great on their own just about anywhere you put them. Rocks can also be painted with the same materials used for shells. Driftwood: Pieces of driftwood in interesting shapes can be painted with designs (try a sea creature) or words. Hang them around your home, or make a welcome sign for the cottage or garden. Vacation pictures: Not only can you make memorable scrapbooks with your photographs, you can also make canvas montages, decoupage, cards and shadow boxes that combine seashells and other beach findings along with your treasured pictures. More ideas: Do you have an old, empty fish bowl kicking around? Dig it up, clean it out and fill it with seashells. Fill it halfway with water, and then add floating candles. Seashells and sea glass can be used to make mosaics on mirrors, picture frames, clay pots and boxes. They can also be used to embellish wreaths, lamps, containers and candles using tile cement or white glue. Make cool castings with seashells and other beach findings, using Gedeo silicone molding paste and resin plaster.
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