Beachy-keen

Earlier this Spring I did a little re-decorating in the dining room (more photos on that later). I have one huge blank wall (which I continue to consider removing in part) so I thought I'd do a collage wall of photos and objects. I'm thinking of switching out the photos throughout the year, depending on the season. Maybe a spring/summer feel like you see here and then maybe a fall/winter set. The room is fairly neutral so I have a bit of flexibility. Most of the photos I used this time around were of places we love in the South, such as photos I've taken in Savannah and Charleston. Then there are some photos of Henry at the beach in Rehoboth, Delaware in June this year. I filled in a few places with color from a set of Amy Butler cards I had around. I think I got them a few years ago for Christmas from my friend Candy.

The beginning of the collage wall in the dining room.

But this post isn't really about the collage wall. It's about a cute little shadow box (from Cosmo Cricket) I hung there in the middle. That little navy blue box with the cut-out window in the center. I've had that box for awhile and when I started looking around for objects to add to the wall, I thought about the shadow box and using a seashell I've held onto since November. Henry's first seashell. He picked it up when we were visiting my parents over Thanksgiving at their new place near Sarasota, Florida. We took a trip one evening down to Boca Grande and Henry had a fun time picking up shells and running around on the beach at Gasparilla Island. Later that evening we found he had this shell still with him so I just put it somewhere for safekeeping figuring I'd eventually come up with a project.

So back to the box. I painted it a dark blue (to go with the other colors in the room). I found an old map online of the west coast of Florida. You find TONS of free high quality maps online at the Library of Congress' American Memory site (in addition to tons of cool old photos) and the Perry-Castaneda Library online. So I just glued the map inside the box. The glued the little shell onto the map near the site where it was found. To jazz it up a bit (and I thought I grabbed some glitter out of my old craft supplies that looked less disco and more sand-y, but I was wrong) I added a little "sand" around the shell.