My beach mantel

I resisted the urge to redecorate the mantel as long as I could. After Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter, I told myself I was not going to do anything else until we complete the makeover of this mantel and TV space. That may still be a long time coming and I got inspired by some beach and shell themed decor I saw around blog land. Knowing that I had some diy hurricanes and a box of seashells collected over the years, I decided that I should put them to use again. I'm glad I did. Here's my beachy mantel (warning: lots of pictures to follow).

I made a few purchases to go along with things I already had and made some things for this display. All of my purchases were on sale or made with coupons or gift cards. All total I probably spent $25 on this.

The left side includes some hurricanes filled with white sand and blue sand and shells. The skinny hurricane has some potpourri mix from Michael's that had some shells and driftwood pieces in it. The framed shell art is part of what I made. I'll  post details in another post. The starfish I made also- salt dough. More on that later too. The huge shell ball was a steal from Home Goods (purchased with a gift card so it was essentially free) at $6.99. I probably couldn't buy a Styrofoam ball that size for that price! The little lanterns on each side came from World Market.

More salt dough star fish over here and the shadow box is a piece the hubby had when we were dating. We've kept it and moved it around this us. The bird was purchased at Big Lots.

Hubby got in on the decorating just as I was finishing up and place some electric tea lights inside the lanterns.

Don't they make you want to side by a fire on the beach at night?

I got this completed just in time to link up to the beachy vignettes and project challenge at CSI!




I'm so into shells and beach decor right now, I've also listed a sea shell card in my shop.

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