DIY Dry flower and seashells decoration

I was driven to this by circumstances. Since I live in the Czech Republic, I don`t go to the beach every weekend and therefore every time we would go to Greece, Italy, Croatia… I felt like I needed to import as many seashells as possible. This resulted in an excessive amount of seashells in my room and I finally decided to do something about it. I can assure you of this – more projects are to come out.

This is a super simple decoration and rather than a “how to do this”; this project is more like “look, you can do this” and I personally view it as an idea more than a tutorial.

What you`re going to need:

• A glass, vase, bottle or even a jar –
  
  the only requirement is that it`s see-through
• Dried flowers of your choice or even fake flowers, just plain branches would sure look great also (I am using dried peonies)
• Seashells

You start by putting a little amount of seashells to the bottom of the glass. This creates a base. Then go ahead and place your flowers or branches however you like. Then add the rest of the seashells. I learnt this the hard way – if you start by pouring all of your seashells in the glass (which I naturally did since it looked like the easiest way) there is no way you get the flowers in after it is full.

Voila, this is the finished product. I will for sure re-use this idea at some point and I`d prefer a round vase for it, I think it would look more beachy but that`s just me. Hope you like it and can find some inspiration in it! Be sure to let me know.

Much love and style

Kris&Susie

Fancy shelf DIY

I happen to be a college student and since I have a very limited space in my tiny room there I had to master a specific type of decoration in order to make myself feel as “at home” as possible. I call these “low budget creative decorations for limited spaces”.

The good things about college habitation are the following:

• It`s yours, meaning you can make it as personal as you want to.
• It`s temporary, you can go a little crazy and experiment.
• It`s a challenge, face it. Make it as pretty and as functional as possible.

My first project was a shelf. I really wanted to put a vase with flowers somewhere and my room was certainly not big enough for any other table than the desk I already had there.

I searched around and got some inspiration off of Pinterest. This is my final product:

Budget:

Shelf – Ikea: $ 2

2 shelf holders – Ikea: $ 1.25 each

Tempera paint – 2 tubes (7ml each) - $ 2 total

Brushes – 1 thin and 1 thick – around $ 4 total

Other things you will need:

Pencil

Ruler

Screws and a screwdriver (ideally a man to do that part but it`s not too hard)

These are very detailed instructions:
1. Put the shelf on the wall where you want it and make marks for how wide it was. Then take it off

2. With a pencil draw the body of the table. Make sure to leave yourself big enough space in between the pattern, trust me, you will cross your pencil line and the last thing you want is to have the pattern connect where it`s not supposed to. (note that eraser works as wonderful on the wall as it does on paper)

3. After you`re finished with the body, draw the legs. You want to make sure they are both equally as far from the center. I used a simple ruler for that. It doesn`t have to be totally precise.

4. Take the thin brush and go around the edges. 

5. Fill the insides with paint with the thick brush. (I kept switching cause I was curious how it was gonna look like, so I lined the edges of the pattern and filled it in right away)

6. Let it dry for about 2 hours

7. Screw the shelf holders in and finally – put the shelf on top of them. I didn`t feel like more screws so I just used a two sided duct tape (and I am not ashamed, lol)

Voila – here`s your little personal table/shelf. I couldn`t tell you how many people asked me about it and had a hard time believing it was that simple!