Don't Shell Out Big Bucks for Shell Art!

I <3 Williams Sonoma. We registered here for our wedding, and the pots and pans we received are one of my favorite wedding gifts - I'm obsessed with them! We can justify expensive investments in high quality necessities such as pots and pans, especially since we both love to cook. However, I could not justify shell-ing out the big bucks for their new line of shell wall art:

Williams Sonoma

Williams Sonoma

Williams Sonoma



Williams Sonoma

Williams Sonoma



William Sonoma




Williams Sonoma



I find all of the art above to be beautiful. I love how this shell artwork is obviously coastal but is also very elegant and beautiful. There are so many substyles of coastal decor (nautical, cottage, tiki, etc.) and coastal decor is most commonly seen in those substyles. The above art by WS is so elegant and differs from how I usually see coastal decor portrayed. So now that I've shared the positives about the shell art above, it's time for the only drawback...which is a pretty big one, at that. The WS shell art above ranges in price from $355-475 a piece. The arrangement of artwork in the last picture above would cost well into the thousands. Um, that's crazy. I wouldn't even spend that on my beloved WS pots and pans.


So, feeling bolstered by last week's $20 success with recreating a $300 piece of Crate and Barrel artwork (post here), I felt confident I could create my own version of the WS shell artwork. I pulled out my glue gun decided to recreate the purple sea urchin artwork because our master bedroom is lacking artwork and also happens to be purple (for now). This project cost me $11.00 and here's the end result:

Here's the how to:


1) I ordered purple sea urchins off Ebay. I ordered in bulk (15 sea urchins) ranging in size from 1.5-2 inches. I knew I would only be using 9 sea urchins, but I wanted to have extras as I knew the sizes may fluctuate a bit. I planned to use the 9 urchins that were closest in size. In sum, the 15 urchins set me back $6.60 and an additional $4.26 for shipping. I was thrilled when they arrived, because they were all in excellent quality and were all basically the same size. As result, I was able to pick the urchins I found to be the most beautiful and/or unusual versus selecting the top 9 urchins by size. I will definitely find a home somewhere in our house for the leftover urchins, too.

2) I had a large white (glass-less) frame purchased last summer at Walmart. I was going to use the frame for a project but it unfortunately didn't make it past our basement before the glass was shattered. Rather than tossing it, I saved it in the basement (along with other unused frames) for the future perfect project.

3) I added a sheet of iridescent 8.5 x 11" paper I had leftover from our wedding. If I didn't have this paper, I probably would have used white cardstock, which I always have laying around. In this picture, you can kind of pick up on the iridescence:

4) I arranged the 6 sea urchins onto the paper. I was then going to measure off each location to ensure they were equally spaced...but I was feeling lazy (it was Sunday morning) and I also couldn't find a ruler in our house (crazy, since I'm an elementary teacher and have boxes upon boxes of school supplies) so I just eye-balled their placement.

5) I used a glue gun to adhere the urchins into place.

6) I hung my new $11 artwork upstairs in our bathroom:

After hanging the artwork, the hubs and I went out and picked out a new farmhouse sink for our kitchen with the moolah I saved from this project. Well, that is sort of true. We knew that we wanted to get a farmhouse sink and we were going to do that regardless of this art ol' art project. I only bring this up because the farmhouse sink even costs less than the WS shell art!


I definitely plan to make some more of these...I have tons of leftover shells from our wedding and some random frames in our basement still. Anyone else out there recently recreate something for much less than the original sticker price??

I am linking up to the following link parties this week:

Sunday: Tatertots and Jello

Monday: The DIY Showoff, Between Naps on the Front Porch, Skip to My Lou, The Girl Creative, House in Roses, Making the World Cuter, Keeping it Simple, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, Super Stinky Boys, Mad in Crafts, Creating Really Awesome Free Things, All Things Related and http://diyhshp.blogspot.com.

Tuesday: Coastal Charm, Hope Studios, New Nostalgia, The Lettered Cottage, , The Herber Family, Tip Junkie, The Gypsy Corner, and Creating a House of Grace.

Wednesday: Someday Crafts, Savvy Southern Style, Faded Charm Cottage, The Thrifty Home, Tales from Bloggaritaville, and Blue Cricket Design.

Thursday: Somewhat Simple, The Shabby Chic Cottage, House of Hepworths, The Virginia House, Delightful Order,  Allie Makes, and http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/ .

Friday: Chic on a Shoestring, Romantic Home, Finding Fabulous, Common Ground, It’s a Hodge Podge Life, French Country Cottage, A La Carte, Just a Girl, Shabby Nest, Fingerprints on the Fridge, and Stuff and Nonsense.