There is a bookcase that was moved recently from our basement into our library and it is the place in our home that most of our beach memorabilia is displayed. We love going to the beach, whether it is on the west coast, east coast and even Hawaii and Mexico. We’ve collected seashells, sea glass and pieces of driftwood when we were living in California and most recently on our annual trip to North Carolina. When I am shopping I always look for beach themed picture frames or small decorative pieces. Decorators advise that when you have a collection of items it is best to display them together for the most visual impact. That is exactly what I did with the beach memorabilia that we have collected over the years.
To start the process of moving the bookcase from the basement to the library, I took a photo of the existing beach bookcase so I could reference the placement of the items. Next, I cleared the bookcase and carefully boxed all the fragile seashells and picture frames. Once it was emptied, the bookcase was finally ready to move upstairs.
Now, that the bookcase was in its new place in our library it was time to return the beach memorabilia back to the shelves. Before doing that, I made sure the shelves were cleaned and ready to go. To add some visual interest, on the top shelf of the bookcase I hung some fishing netting and attached some starfish.
I had purchased a large resin seashell “bowl” several years ago from a local retail store and I wanted to position this large piece in the center of the third shelf of the bookcase. To add more interest I put some pieces of artificial red coral behind the bowl and then I filled the container with small seashells.
Next, I positioned all the picture frames because I considered them the main focus of each shelf and, generally speaking, these are the items that draw the eyes’ attention. On the top shelf are three picture frames, two of them are special craft projects. The first one is a wooden photo frame that resembles driftwood and I glued several seashells that we collected on the beach in North Carolina. Inside the frame is a photo of our daughter at the lifeguard station at the same beach. The second one is another wooden frame and I glued seashells at the four corners. Inside the frame I created a heart shape using several fragments of seashells collected from the same trip. This is one of my favorite pieces of our beach memorabilia collection.
More beach photos are displayed on the other two shelves. On the next shelf are two great photos taken almost 20 years apart. One photo is of my son and I on the beach at Carmel, CA and the other one is of my husband and daughter at the same beach. I thought it was a great way to remember this very special beach that we loved to visit. On the next shelf is a fun photo frame that revolves to show two different photos of our daughter at the beach in Santa Barbara, CA and you can see the joy that she had playing on the sand and surf.
Once I was pleased with the placement of the picture frames, I added the largest seashells from the collection to the shelves. To create some interest to a couple of the seashells, I bought unfinished wooden pieces and used the single height for two of them and doubled the height for the other two simply by hot gluing two pieces together. All four seashells are hot glued into place at the top so they are secure on the wooden pieces. The other large seashells were placed directly on the shelves. To finish the beach memorabilia bookcase display I placed other beach accessories on the shelves, I included a piece of driftwood, a small sand sculpture of a mermaid, a resin seahorse and even a Boyds Bear figurine called “Wilson at the Beach”. (Post Note: the photo of the finished Beach Memorabilia Bookshelf is shown at the top of the page)
