Design For Less, Sand And Coral Display

Good morning and welcome back! I was hoping to do a post this morning on the concrete being poured in my garage, but there's always good and bad about being in the concrete business. Unfortunately a job took my husband's crew elsewhere and not at my house, hoping for later this afternoon (and crossing my fingers).

Today I am doing a quick little post on something that I found and thought that I could recreate my own for less. It started with this picture:

Being that I live in Florida I get allot of inspiration from the sea, and this image by Kelly Hoppen gave me a great idea using an Ikea BLADET vase that I already had in the larger size. I went back and bought the smaller one as well. They are $39.99 and $24.99 for the 2 that I used.

Then I find my sand at JoAnne's for $1.99 per bag (sometimes they have buy 1 get 1 half off) I bought 12 bags because that's all they had but I would recommend ab 15-20 instead.  They simply ran out while I was there, I'll show another picture once I get more sand.

The trickiest part is the coral. It is costly and rare. You could use the faux coral if you find it, but I warn you it doesn't have the same look. I happened to have some already for my table display so I only needed to get a few more pieces to stack. You can also get some that are broken or not perfect for less money because they can be moved around in the vase. I can't predict the cost on this one but I can tell you that for me it was not cheap.

Here is my finished look:

As you can see, I'm in need of more sand. The more the better and the less coral you will need. The pictures honestly don't do it justice (as I say with all my pictures), but a friend even confirmed this one for me when she saw it in person. For around $100 plus the coral you can have yourself an amazing display straight from the pages of a designer. Note that you can use anything from sea fans, sea shells, to star fish for something like this. Be creative~

P.S. I made it to Ikea Hackers with my DIY console table, check out my post here: sleek console table. I hope to post more of my Ikea projects soon.

On the list for this week: guest bathroom, a dinning room that I am working on, concrete in the garage, and hanging the multitude of un-hung items throughout my house. Little by little:)