Beachy Mantel #2 {Nuestras Aventuras En Texas}.

Howdy all you CSI lovelies!

I am super excited to be guest posting here today!

My name is Patty from Our Adventures In Big Ole Texas . I am a mommy to three wonderful children (one in college, YIKES), wife to a super handyman and an accountant by day – crafter by night.

I am here today to share a little bit of sand and surf. Since we don’t live anywhere near the beach, it’s always nice to have a reminder of what we’re missing, er what we love 😉

And we love us some sand and sea!

For this vignette, I decided to decorate our mantel in a beachy elegance theme using mostly things I had around the house and repurposing an old denim shirt. The only things I bought were the wreath form and the decorative sand.

Here’s what it looked like in the end:

And here’s how I put it together:

I repurposed an old shutter that I usually have up at Christmas time (that you can see here). I simply removed the Christmasy spray and bird and hot glued some starfish that I had used, again, at Christmas time (yes, you read that right, starfish at Christmas time you can go here for the post on my Beachy Christmas tree).

{Glue the starfish to shutter}

Then I wanted to make a life preserver to put up on the mantel. To do this, I simply bought a $5 green styrofoam wreath at my local crafts store, spray painted it white (they didn’t have white forms or were too expensive 🙁) then simply cut pieces of denim from an old shirt and glued them on. {Now in this picture I am showing how I was measuring red cardstock to put around it. I decided against this since I wanted creams and blues in my vignette.}

Next, I took some rope that I had laying around my crafts room closet and simply glued that to the back of the denim pieces I glued earlier. I took some clothespins to hold it tight while the glue set. After these few simple steps, I had a life saver 😀

This glass vase is one of my faves. I love how you can take one simple glass item and transform it so many ways. I took a sandalwood candle I had stashed away and simply glued twine around and around to give it some texture. I put some decorative sand in the vase and set the candle in. It glows so pretty at night.

Next, I wanted to contribute more beachy scenes, so I printed out some photos of our last vacation to Newport Beach and the lake. I took some frames I had and gave them a blue distressed wash to balance off the blue denim on the life preserver.

I threw a net I had from my long ago sea bathroom in our old house to tie everything together. Sprinkled through out are a variety of sea shells and starfish from various parts of the world. Some seashells we actually collected and some were bought. All are authentic 🙂

And finally the canvas bunting! I have to tell you, I had sooo much fun making this baby. I had some canvas triangles that I bought a few months back. I love the quality of these. For the letters, I made a stencil with my Cricut on vinyl. I then just took some craft paint and stenciled each letter on each of the triangles.

I love the way it looks! The best part is that I can now stencil something else on the back! Double duty baby 😉

So after stenciling, I simply glued the twine on the back with my Mighty MendIt glue. To make sure it stuck well, I covered the string and glue with some packing tape. This glue dries clear and is almost invisible so I can switch it back and forth between the front and the back if I decide to use the back part of the bunting. You can make small holes in the corners if you wish and then just string your twine or ribbon thru it. When decorating a mantle, you can either do it symmetrical where you balance one side with the other, or asymmetrical where it’s basically lop sided with one side tall and one side short. In the end, it’s what ties it all together that matters; be it a color scheme (here beachy whites, creams and faded blues) or a topical theme (such as picture frames in different heights and textures, a collection of glass vases, etc.)

Your mantle can help convey the mood of your space for little to no money out of pocket. Use items that have sentimental value to you or snazz it up with some colorful and playful things! Don’t forget to visit my blog to pick up on some more ideas on decorating your mantle for different seasons, cool recipes for the summer and much more! See ya soon! ((waves))

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