Pallet for Home

 

There was something missing from my "Beachy" mantel. I couldn't put my finger on it yesterday. Then last night as I was getting ready for bed I remembered some free shutters that I picked up by the side of the road on trash day a few months ago. Perfect!! You know how a flashbulb goes off in your mind?












So this morning I dusted off those old shutters and dug through my spraypaint stash for some paint. I painted the first coat the same "aqua" color as the frame on my mantel. And then when it was finished drying, I added "heirloom white" over the top.






The last thing I did was get my trusty mouse sander and I roughed it all up so the delicious aqua peeks through as well as the original brown color and the bare wood. I love the dimension that sanding adds!!





Then I put it on my mantel. I opened the shutters a little so that the reflection of the mirror still comes through and lights up the room. Then I rearranged some of the mantel items.




And I put the little canvas pennant at the top of the mantel. I got the little sewn pennant shapes from The Canvas Corp. I love the plain canvas with my beach theme.











I put my Summer Subway Art above my entry cabinet. I decided it didn't really go with my Beachy Mantel. But I still really love it!






PS -- While my shutters were drying, I ran to Home Depot and got some samples for my kitchen makeover. Here's what we have so far. Any opinions??  the cabinets are now white so I was thinking a warm grey would be pretty....

Do you go through periods where you are super inspired to do projects and then other periods where you feel burned out and don't want to do anything?? I do. Yesterday I felt super inspired. And I am an impatient crafter. When the feeling strikes, I dig around and find whatever is in my cupboards to make a project.








So I went out in my garage "stash" and found some grapevine wreaths from the Dollar Store. I decided to use the small size. Then I found some black and white pinstripe material. And I crafted up a quick summer wreath with things I had laying around.









Here's what I did: 

• I cut a long piece of the pinstripe fabric 2 inches wide. 

• Then I wrapped it around the grapevine wreath. I wrapped it pretty tightly and overlapped it so that it was pretty cushy with material. 

• I secured the end with my trusty glue gun. 

•  Then I took the material and cut a long strip that was 4 inches wide. And I folded it in half and ironed it so it was flat. So now the material is 2 inches wide with a closed end. 

•  I folded the material in pleats, into a flower shape and hot glued in between the pleats. Then I hot glued the flower onto my wreath. 

• I did the same thing to make two smaller flowers, except instead of a folded 2 inch width, I cut a 2 inch section of fabric and then folded and ironed it so that the folded width was 1 inch. 

• Then I glued those two fabric flowers on each side of the bigger flower. 

• I covered two big buttons with fabric and attached them to the smaller flowers. 

• Then I hot glued a star fish to the bigger flower. 

I have a project in mind that I think will be perfect. I'll work on it today. You know when you finish a project and it just doesn't feel complete. That's how I feel about the mantel. I need to work on that last element.



So until then, here's my partially finished Summer Mantel :)