GORGEOUS SHINY THINGS: porch

Showing posts with label porch. Show all posts

Giant Shell Mirror DIY & a THANKS!

I have give a HUGE thanks to Linds over at Everything LEB for featuring a slew of my DIYs and Marcy at Stylesson for featuring my porch. I am totally flattered by the love, thank you ladies!

While on the topic of DIYs, I have a more detailed explaination on how I made the giant shell mirror from my last post and where to find some...

What you will need:

Hot Glue gun

Round or Octagonal Mirror

Enough shells to surround mirror's edge

Piece of plywood cut 2-3" bigger than mirror

Spray paint to paint plywood and shells (if so desired)

Drill to make hole to hang mirror

I had found 8 of these giant scallop shells I found for $10 last summer at a yard sale I *think*. I found more here and here cheap. The big ones are called Irish Baking Scallops if you want to Google. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, until I came across this octogon mirror I had as well. I played around with them and was digging the patten the negative space made.

I had this fantastic design in my head so I cut a 17" octogon out of plywood and glued it all together and had a big FAIL.

It all fell apart. The shells only have a few points that make contact,

and the hot glue wasn't strong enough.

I decided to spray the shells gold and try something else...

TAKE 2:

I kept the octagonal plywood, but cut it down an inch so it wouldn't show.

I realized the shell's clasp was about the same size as the edge of the mirror. They wouldn't lay flat all together, so they would need to go on in two layers.

I hot glued them in close to the mirror. The first 4 lay flat at every other edge of the mirror, then 4 at an angle on top. To my surprise it held. The upper layer got glued along the clasp and at the points it touched the neighboring shell. I drilled a hole near the top of the underlying plywood to hang it from.

Finished this mirror is 24" around, but I think this can also be done with smaller shells and a round mirror.

Also someone had asked where I got my mosquito netting for my porch curtains... IKEA- 2 enorous panels for like 5 bucks... I used 6 panels and sewed them all together so there were no open seams (lesson learned from last year, those sneaky bugs slip in through the cracks), so $15 total for curtains, and $30 for 2 IKEA wire cable systems to hang them. Super cheap!!!

My favorite "room" of my house

Its not technically in my house, its my covered porch. I had a great balmy Easter and spent most of the day puttering in my yard and fixing up my porch. We live in this space once the weather warms up, so we want it to be as multifunctional as possible.

Its right on the back corner of my house and gets a great breeze from the ocean down the street.

I hung my mosquito netting back up (I HATE bugs).

I also found a home for my cool lantern. I was editing my inside and most of it came out here.

Note the rug from my kitchen. I just couldn't handle cleaning it constantly with all my kids spills.

Where I lounge with a mag and mojito...

I hot glued this mirror together out of some giant scallop shells I sprayed gold and a random octagonal mirror...

Now, if only the weather would warm back up I could enjoy this space!

Outdoor Room

I just love a covered porch + curtains. Instant outdoor room.

source

Its going to be gorgeous here in Boston this weekend so I plan on taking full advantage of the lovely weather and moving on to some outdoor projects. We have a covered porch that I plan on adding some curtains to. I've had a bolt of an outdoor black and white awning stripe kicking around, and I found some super inexpensive mosquito netting at IKEA yesterday (a pair for $4.99, and they are over 100" wide!). I'm a bug magnet, my husband doesn't understand my pain because they never touch him, so this made my day.