Summer Mantel

Summer Mantel, 2012

It probably comes as no surprised to you that my mantel features a heavy beach theme.  The beach is only a hop, skip and jump from our house and, other than our home, it is our favorite place to be.

Driftwood Sailboat

I'm calling this our Sloop John B.  My 6 year old loves this Beach Boys' song, and of course, thinks it was named after him.  He is John B, too!  My boys helped me find the driftwood on one of our local beaches here in Scituate.  I used left over linen material for the sails and some very fun red & white butcher's string to secure it to the wood.

Blue - my favorite color - is a big feature in the mantel from the beautiful vintage blue Ball jars to the fabric scrap garland.

Vintage Ball Jars

I picked the smaller jar up at Brimfield for only 2 bucks!  The larger one I got at Folk Art Antiques in Duxbury on clearance.

The tea light holders are from Target from the Privet Collection.  I love the rope detailing on them!  I made the fabric scrap garland and it is available in my Etsy shop.

Fabric scrap garland & shells

Oh, how can I forget those sweet little sea urchins?  The air plants and sea urchin holders are from the Beach Grass Cottage, a very very cool Etsy shop filled to the brim with shells and shell art by Shari Curtiss.  Her shop was the first place I'd ever seen the sputnik sea urchins and I love their bumpy and spiky quality.  I also love the color.

Sea Urchins and Air Plants

Rounding out the mantel is my Surf sign made with chalk paint, see it here.  This item is also available for sale in my Etsy shop!

Surf sign and shells

What do you think?  I think we're about ready for the beach!

I'm linking to Layla's mantel party:

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