Shell Shock

Thought I would share another easy peasy project we did for Dear Daughter's big girl room... this room has been in the PLANNING stages for two years, but Mommy failed to get off her duff and get it done.  That said, we had lots of time to gather ideas and this was one of them...

Vacationed this summer at the awesome Amelia Island, Florida... now, I am a Gulf Coast girl going WAY back in my childhood, but that blasted oil spill put a damper on our usual trip to Gulf Shores so we had to regroup and discover a new beach on the "OTHER" side of Florida.  Blasphemy.  I want the sandy white beaches of my youth, but I put on my big girl undies and endured the very LONG drive to the Atlantic side.  What a surprise treat Amelia turned out to be!  Different beaches for sure, but LOADED with shells, awesome waves, and just a delightfully sleepy southern town vibe.  Actually THINK my handsome hubby is taking me back there with him on a business trip soon... yippee!  Here is Sweet Son skim boarding on the Amelia beaches... taken with my iphone and the WAY cool Hipstamatic app...

Of course, Mimi and I always have to take at least one day away from the surf, sand, and skim boarding (JUST KIDDING, I tried to skim board ONCE... not pretty)  to visit the local antique shops, and Amelia was a GOLDMINE.   Wandering through one great eclectic shop I came across this:

Pardon the poor picture quality... it was dark in there and I was using my phone camera.

Ok, so I LOVED this... perfect for Dear Daughter's beachy, vintage theme room... but seriously, the price was HIGH at around $100.  Remember how I mentioned there are millions of GREAT shells on the Amelia Island beaches?  My kids spend literally HOURS scouring the beaches for shells... and then there was that day I made Handsome Hubby walk about 6 miles down the beach with me collecting shells in his shirt... oops, forgot to bring a bag.  I decided to snap a pic and HOPEFULLY remember when I got home to try to recreate this idea...

I have been keeping my eye out for the perfect frame.  In my favorite thrift store one day I found 2 matching framed pieces of art... sort of that 70's Home Interiors style... ugly, dreary looking "fake" paintings in some really scrolly french provencial plastic frames.  One dollar each... JACKPOT.  I didn't even need to get canvases for the shells, they could go directly on the old "paintings"...

Dear Daughter picked out a shade of purple acrylic paint for the frames, to match a surfboard we painted in the same color. Got to work painting the frames... no primer, just slapped a couple of coats right on... because these are some form of cheap plastic, without primer some of the old frame peeks through, giving them exactly the vintage look we were going for anyway.  Next I grabbed my trusty hot glue gun and went to town with those million shells we collected... very little time and about $3 later... voila!

Dear Daughter is in heaven!  These are perfect for the "collage" of stuff above her bed (will blog on that later) and they are very special to her because the shells were collected by her family during her favorite week of the year... Mommy loves them because they were fun to make, turned out cuter than the inspiration (in my humble Mommy opinion), and saved me about 97 bucks... yea me!