Creative Kitchen Décor with Beach Finds

By Maria Chatzi

Have you ever gone beach combing and saved your finds? Do you have pebbles, sea shells and sea glass, collected from beaches during your summer vacations, lovingly stored to keep your memories from fading with time? If so, take your treasures out of their chests — use them to decorate your kitchen.

If you’re one of the lucky ones that has plenty of time for creative crafting perhaps you could make all the projects suggested bellow and give your kitchen a fresh summer look. In addition to these décor ideas, change window treatments, refresh wall paint and you have a quick and easy diy kitchen remodeling.

So, here are some ideas on what to do with things collected from the beach for a creative kitchen décor.

Use drift wood and white or beige pebbles to:

1. Use the finds mentioned above to fill glass jugs, bottles and mason jars, all in layers — one layer of pebbles, the other of drift wood. Place the glass containers on counters or shelves, grouped together or standing alone. If the containers themselves are attractive, they will look even better.
2. Make place mats with pebbles that are flat on one side — you can find free tutorials online. Decorate place mat corners with pieces of drift wood, burlap and raffia.
3. Craft a wall clock — buy clock hands and the clock mechanism from stores that sell clock parts. Another option is to upcycle an old cheap clock you have at home, or buy one from your local thrift store.
4. Decorate your cabinet doors. Flat small-sized pebbles and small pieces of driftwood are ideal for making frames or mosaic sea designs, like a starfish, shells and a jellyfish or other nautical designs like sailing boats.

Use sea shells and sea glass to:

1. Craft decorations to hang from your windows or place on a window sill. These could be either abstract, modern designs or country style.
2. Remake an old and dull kitchen shelf. You could choose to change its color to a lighter or brighter one before decorating with sea shells and sea glass.
3. Decorate a wooden kitchen towel hanger. If the hooks are metal clean them well before gluing the sea shells and sea glass onto the wooden hanger. If they are wooden and worn out, perhaps you would like to consider replacing them with new ones.

Use china pieces and ceramic tile pieces to:

1. Make framed wall art. Make it abstract, or use line drawings of kitchen utensils and food shapes (onto which you will glue your finds, using an extra strong adhesive).
2. Craft a mosaic with them to hang (glue or screw) on one side of your backsplash, as a decorative piece of artwork.
3. Create a pretty wall border for one of your kitchen walls — search for online tutorials to follow. You could use china and ceramic finds in earthy tones, adding some with yellows and blues as accent colors.

Tips

1. Check sea glass before using it for a creative project — to look nice, it has to be well-tumbled by the waves (have a frosty look) and not have chipped edges.
2. Be careful when applying clear varnish to your finds. Sea shells, china pieces and ceramic tile pieces will all look much brighter, as the colors become more vivid after the application. Drift wood would turn much darker than before. Colorful pebbles will look great and shiny with vivid colors. BUT you would ruin sea glass by applying clear varnish to it because it will lose its frosty and authentic look. •

© 2013 Maria Chatzi. All rights reserved.

Updated 1/21/14