It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere

Transform an ordinary $10.00 Wal-Mart Clock http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-8.75-Wall-Clock/16611064 into something fabulous with a few shells, starfish and a glue gun. I had two in my house. One in natural wood (R) and another in green. (I painted the natural wood one).

I got the inspiration for this clock when shopping at Kohls. http://www.kohls.com/kohlsStore/decor/clocks/novelty/PRD~46582/Seashell+Wall+Clock.jsp. Really $40.00 for a wall clock? I had two I wanted to replace so that’s $80.00 on clocks!! And, there was nothing wrong with mine. They were just ugly and plain.

So I got out the shells, starfish, and glue gun and presto. Note many of the shells I used were re-purposed from the Luau Cake from my niece’s bridal shower this summer. So when I look at the clock I’m reminded of a special time. (And, I love the Hula girl at 5:00 p.m.)

Decoupage Diva

Part of my new found crafting includes finding out that I'm really good at decoupage. I kinda stumbled upon it on accident as I was searching for switch plate covers for my home. My home has a low voltage wiring system (popular in the 50s) that has these funky switch plate covers--not sold in store. And, these cheap plastic vanilla colored cover plates all over my house looked horrible in a freshly painted, updated room. So, I took to the internet and found a solution. From that project, I've become a decoupage diva and I will post those projects in upcoming blogs. (Just wait until you see my desk makeover!)


But on to the variations of my "welcome" wreath. 

My boss also lives on the shores of Lake Erie so I thought she too would enjoy the umbrella drink wreath. This too cost under $10.00. Using plain white initial lettering (found in any craft store for $2.00-$3.00) I decoupaged the front of it using a shell background pattern I found in my Microsoft word templates. If you don't know how to decoupage I highly suggest that you check out http://www.modpodgerocksblog.com/ Not only does it contain great how-to guides, tips and videos, there are some great projects too! Then using a glue gun and some left over shells and sea glass to give it dimension.

Attaching the "M" to the center of the wreath was a little tricky because it was just slightly smaller than the wreath (plus grapevine wreaths are never perfect!). So I used some eyelet screws on the top of the letters and wire and then attached with twine and wire which the umbrellas covered up and then I reinforced the bottom of the lettering using a glue gun.

For this particular wreath I needed to trim many of the wooden toothpicks on the umbrellas as they were too long. (again no two grapvine wreaths are created equal!) I found a wire cutter works better than scissors which tended to shred the wood. 

I repeated this same process to create another wreath using the letter "B". Instead of shells, I used Star Fish (also left over from another project). While these looked great in the wreaths, I could see them acting as stand alone wall pieces.

Welcome to My Blog!

This is the first post in my new blog "Live, Love, Lake" that I started to house all my DIY projects. I've always been artistic. I studied English Literature in college and grad school (specifically Shakespeare and Medieval Lit) with a minor in art history. I've always been a writer and to boot, I have beautiful handwriting which was enhanced by calligraphy classes in high school--so even my writing is a work of art! I find painting, crafting, writing very therapeutic but have had little time for creativity as I was raising my kids and focusing on my career. Knowing my nest would be empty when I was 38, I use to tell with my daughter that when she went off to college I was going to sell our home, live on a beach and never look back. Didn't quite work out that way but I'm as close as I can get right now. I did sell our home and purchased a home on the shores of Lake Erie in a suburb of Cleveland OH. It might not be tropical but I have a view of the water from every room in my home, hear the waves crash, and I see this every morning from the window seat in my living room.

Not only is the home on the water, but it is far too big for an empty-nester--4 bedrooms, 3 baths and a kitchen that is over 400 square feet! In Cleveland, you don't have to be mega wealthy to buy a home on the Lake Erie--you just have to keep looking. It took me 4 years to find this place. And, you do get what you pay for so needless to say my place needed a lot of TLC.  

So now with kids in college, I have the time but not the funds to make this place GREAT! And, I've enjoyed every minute of handcrafting many of the items in my home and redecorating every room. Plus, I make a lot of cool gifts for friends and family along the way. 

I thought I'd start out my blog with "welcome wreath" I just made for my front door.
I got the initial idea for these wreaths from two pins I saw on Pinterest. The first being a wreath made out of drink umbrellas and the second being one made out of flip flops. I decided to combine the two. Easy Peasy and cost approx. $10.00 dollars!

Supplies:

• 1 Grapevine Wreath: cost $4.50
• 40 Paper Umbrellas (approx.) I bought a box of 144  at a restaurant supply store for $2.50 so i have for other projects.

• Flip Flops: dollar spot at target $1.00

• Faux flowers: in the dollar spot at my local craft store $1.00

• "Welcome" wood script: $1.00 at my local craft store (they also have "Relax, Family, Love and Dream that I've used for other projects)

• The paint and butterflies I had from another project. I use acrylic paint--dries easy and i found this bottle for $.59

To make:

• Paint the lettering

• Attached flowers to the flip flops

• Hot Glue the "Welcome" lettering and flip flops to wreath

• Fill in wreath with paper umbrellas (and accent with flower and butterflies if desired but not necessary!). The great part of the umbrellas is they just stick in the grapevine wreath--no gluing necessary.

I love my finished project. It is the perfect "Welcome" to my Lakeside home.  And my next blog will show you two other wreaths I made for friends as gifts using the left over umbrellas, some shells, mod podge and wood lettering.