Summer Mantle

Summer is my season -- I love everything about it including decorating my "mantle/nook" in my living room, to reflect my favorite place to be -- the beach.

Most of the shells came from our favorite spot -- St. Simons Island, Georgia.  We vacation there every year and hope to retire there some day.

 I kept a lot of the larger pieces the same (my vintage scale and books) and just added this cute string of seashell lights and a decorative fishing net.

 I draped the netting up onto the sconces and attached onto the old windows I have hanging on the wall to either side of the nook.

 The netting extends down to this basket I painted.  It's always filled with something to reflect the season.  The little birdhouse was a gift from our neighbors and is made of stained glass panels.  It's so pretty when it's lit up!

 This little picture actually has interchangeable sayings for the four seasons.  I made it by attaching a piece of metal to the base and the quote boards have little magnets so each piece snaps off and on. You can see how I did this on my post, "Four Season Art".

 Now isn't this the SWEETEST little nest?! I treasure this -- my girls found this on a walk years ago and brought it home to me.  There were no eggs in it of course but through the years I've collected Robin eggs from abandoned nests or found on walks in the woods.  I've had people ask, "Don't those eggs rot and stink?!".  Well, no.  None of mine have.  I didn't do anything with them to 'preserve' them and I've had most of these for several years now.  I wish I knew what kind of bird made this nest -- any ideas?  It's woven of extremely fine grasses -- no mud or sticks.  It's just lovely.

I always have a few 'anchor' pieces in my vignettes and then fill in with smaller, seasonal pieces and try to tie it all together with something like the fish net, or fabric, lace, etc.

 Now for a few shots I took yesterday of the butterflies on my phlox.  So lovely!

Not only popular with the butterflies but the bumblebees certainly were enjoying the flowers yesterday as well!  

 These flowers are so fragrant and have a fairly long growing period so my house is filled to the brim with them right now.  I hope you are enjoying the summer and soaking in all of this warmth and sunshine while you can (at least those of us up north are!).