Sea Shells from the Sea Shore.

It doesn't matter how old I am. If I'm at the beach and there are sea shells. I will be picking some up. 

I love them. 

But what do you do with them once you have them? I didn't really want a jar or a picture frame, and that was about all I could think of. Until I realized they WERE my souvenir. So instead of framing something else,I decided to frame them. This one is from a 2012 trip and a beautiful day at Laguna Beach. The Sea Stars were purchased. The rest were found. 

I recently returned from a wonderful California trip with my Mom and my Sister. We started at Santa Monica Pier and made it all the way down to Laguna with most of our time spent at Newport. My sister and I walked the beach in search of treasures. I couldn't believe it when I found a fully intact Sand Dollar. It was the first time I have ever found one. I was excited to show my sister and we decided we would look until we found one for her. My Mom finally found it for her. I'm sure it is strange, but it felt like a reassuring gift to us.  

When we got home I started the search for the right frame. I had one I was working on but decided an 8x10 opening was too small. Our Shopko is closing so I decided to see what they had on clearance. I found this lovely piece of wall art. 

I looked past the chicken and knew I could do something with it. I brought it home and taped up all the framing then sprayed the chicken away with primer. 

Bye Bye Chicken

I added my favorite gold paint -Krylon Caramel Latte. 

It is a lovely, soft gold. I use this paint a lot. 

Now for the frame. I liked its rough, barn wood look, but the color wasn't beachie enough. 

A bit of deglosser to take the seal off of the wood. 

Water down some turquoise paint to brush onto the frame,

leave it to soak in for just a minute, then wipe off the excess 

Not sure you can tell with my lighting, but the left side has some blue, most of the right hasn't been painted yet. 

 Time to figure the lay out and glue it down. 

I love how it ended up. I need to find someone with great handwriting. I would like to add the year and location to the frame. -But in a good way. Which rules out me EVER taking sharpie to it.-  

So whatd'ya think?  Not bad for Chicken art  

Christmas Starburst Continued

A couple of weeks ago I did a small post about the Starburst I wanted to make. I thought it went up. but this week I realized it probably hadn't.  

So Here is the missing post.  

I had already started my starburst and had pieces glued in before I even considered putting it on a blog. So there is a pretty important photo missing. I was in Michael's and found a round wood "block". They had one that was  5" diameter, 1" thick for $.99. I brought it home and set it on my Quilting Mat marking the vertical, horizontal and cross lines

                                                                  Badly improvised shot 

I drilled a hole at each of those marks then added 2 in between. Giving a total of 24. I then carried it to the store with me to find dowels that fit. You could buy a package of precut dowels but I wanted mine longer.  I bought 12 dowels, making sure to watch for straight ones, then with Painters tape, I taped them together and cut them a bit off center so every other one was longer.  

One tip is to lay all the dowels parallel to spray paint. I had already glued mine in. It took 2 cans to cover each individually. Spraying them together will save you paint.  

Next up are the mirrors. I wanted different sizes. JoAnn's had the best price. I was able to get a package of 4-2" mirrors for $.99. Everywhere else was about double that. The price for 24-1", was about the same everywhere, usually just over $2.00.

5" flat mirrors are available at any of the stores. But I took the advice of the wonderful Epbot.com and bought a 5" blind spot mirror from O'rileys for $8.00. I considered driving around to find a better price, then decided I would waste as much in gas as I might save. It came on a plastic base with a large mounting bracket on the back so out comes the Dremel tool. (and a smile on my face)

It is slightly rounded giving a little extra dimension to the starburst. 

Now here is where the "Mel" brain kicks in. I wanted to make sure I had a secure mount on the mirrors,  and sitting them on top of a rounded dowel hoping the glue would hold wasn't working in my mind. I grabbed some fabric from the stash. I did the blue to see it better but I actually used muslin which was cut much more flat and a little wider than the mirror. 

Pinching it together, I added hot glue at the ends.

Making a nifty little sleeve that wraps around the dowel. 

I then slide them on figuring out how I wanted mine to look. Once each mirror was placed I went back and glued them down. 

The last step is setting the rounded mirror. I used E6000 Glue. 

 I placed a soft cloth on top of the mirror and set a book over that till it set. Then clean off the mirrors and try to stay away from a teen age, blond daughter just itching to touch each one as you cleaned it. 

And that's it.  

Pretty Huh?  

I did add some wood rounds that will hopefully tie it into my new accent I'm making for the Christmas tree. (Christmas Swirl post) They are neutral enough that I think this sun burst will be staying put for a while.  

See you next week.