Every so often my husband and I like to enjoy a glass of wine at dinner. Once we finish off a bottle, I always hate throwing them away. For some reason I feel guilty.. like I should be reusing them! So I decided to try to use them as vases (not very creative I know!), and I wanted to hang them on the wall in my dining room.

John and I searched Home Depot for some type of gadget or hook to hang the bottles. Ultimately this is what we found in the plumbing hardware section (sorry I don’t even know what it’s called – I will refer to it as the “hanger”). (Step 1) It’s copper and about 6-7 inches long. We figured the vase needed to hang at least 3 inches away from the wall, (Step 2) so we bent the hanger in half.

Then we loosened the screws so that the top of the wine bottle would fit through the end of the hanger (Step 3). I cleaned the bottles with soap and water, removed the labels and let them dry. I actually ended up spray painting my bottles with a white primer before hanging them as well. When the bottles are dry you will place the end of the hanger around the bottle. You will have to squeeze the ends tightly back together and secure it with the copper screw (Step 4).

Next we screwed the hanger piece (with attached bottle) right into the wall with two screws (Step 5). Here is the final product in my dining room. Not sure if I like the white after all… I may end up switching back to plain glass bottles. What do you think of the final product? 

~Christina

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Remember the mason jar filled with sea shells? Read about that project here. These are the leftover shells and I decided to put the jar in the bathroom for decoration. What do you think of the baskets for shelves? So far this arrangement is working out and it is nice to have spare toilet paper nearby when your husband never changes the roll!

Problem solved!

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My husband’s favorite place on earth is his family’s summer home community on Long Island, NY. He has spent every summer of his life there on the beach. The community is open from April to November, as it closes down in the winter time.

 Since moving to NY in 2009, I thought it would be a fun project to take pictures of the summer community during each season of the year. Then we could use them to make a picture wall in our new home. After much planning, we decided to use one specific location for the four photographs of each season.

 We obviously knew the Fall and Winter photos would be easy to distinguish. So we ran into a little trouble with the Spring and Summer photos. I thought it would be a good idea to get John into the Summer photo as this is the season that people spend the most time in the community. So here is what we came up with for the seasonal photos…

We also threw in a few pictures of the beach to mix it up. These photos were taken at the beginning of May.

And here is the final product hanging on the wall in our living room!!

We are soo proud! It’s like our baby.. I mean when you think about it, it did take us over a year to accomplish this project. It was really fun though! and we get compliments everytime we have friends over.

What is your favorite place on earth??  Do you think this is something you could create for your own home??

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When my grandmother recently passed away, my grandfather gave me a mason jar filled with seashells. He told me that I had collected them with my grandmother during a trip to the beach when I was a child. He had saved the shells for over 20 years! We didn’t know exactly what year, but I couldn’t have been any older than 5 years. That day my grandmother and I had taken a long walk together on the beach, just the two of us..

 I didn’t really know what to do with the shells, but a shadow box of some sort seemed appropriate. Most of the shells were broken and I got frustrated trying to sort them out. I felt like I could only use the perfect shells for some reason. Then I realized that we collected even the broken ones because we thought they were special! So after a trip to Michaels for a $5 shadowbox on sale (I figured it wasn’t worth my time to make one since this one was so cheap) + gorilla super glue = this is what I came up with..

I superglued everything one by one onto the shadowbox backing. The broken shells formed the stems of flowers. I let the shells dry with the shadowbox on its back for 24 hours. In the bottom of the box I added rocks that we picked up and used the dried rose as my grandmother’s last name was Rose. What do you think? I’m pretty proud! I haven’t found the right spot for it yet. For now it sits on my bookshelf. I thought I’d share this as an idea for a Mother’s Day present.

 - Christina

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