4 Easy Ways to Display Your Beach Vacation Treasures

I decorate my home in a beach & coastal style and I'm always looking for quick and easy ways to display my collected beach vacation treasures. These beach vacation keepsakes include things such as: seashells, starfish, sand dollars, beach sand, drift wood, sea glass, coastal bird feathers, coral, sea pebbles and other things that I personally collect from the beach and ocean.

Today I'm going to share with all of you some simple ideas on how you can display your collected beach vacation treasures around your own home. All of these ideas are quick, easy and inexpensive!

For the first project...I took an empty & clean pasta jar with a wooden lid and filled it up with a slew of my beach treasures, including a dollar bill that hubby found in the sand. I took a white chalk paint maker and wrote "Beach Treasures" on the wooden lid and tied raffia around the pasta jar to finish off the look.

I took an older glass coffee or tea canister with lid and removed all of the labels from it. After I had it cleaned it...I placed all of my collected pebbles and smooth rocks inside it. I've been collecting these from one particular beach in New Jersey and hoping to have it completely filled up after our next Jersey Shore trip. Once filled, I'm going to tie some raffia around the neck of the canister to give it some pizzazz and will probably glue a small sand dollar on it.

I had an empty large glass vase that I picked up at the flea market for .50 cents and decided to make a seascape inside it. The sand that you see is sand that I brought home from vacation in a small zipper closure baggie. I used a low-temp glue gun to glue natural colored twine (thin-gauge rope) around the base to make it look a little bit rustic. I laid a chunky piece of white coral inside it along with various pieces of driftwood, sea shells and pebbles. I'm hoping to find myself a small sand dollar or starfish the next time I hit the beach to complete the look.

Finally, I purchased this white wood shadow box at my local craft supply store (A.C. Moore) and used a coupon to get it 50% off. I believe it cost me $10.00. It holds a combination of photographs and treasures...so I placed four photos of my family at the beach inside it and then filled up the remaining 5 cavities with my treasures: seashells, driftwood, sand dollar and a star fish. Now that I'm done with it, hubby is going to hang it up onto the wall for me next weekend.

I like simple things when it comes to coastal & beach decorating and I like them in soothing neutral tones. You can make these items even fancier and more colorful than what I did. You can whip them all up in one day and do so very inexpensively if you're on a budget. In the coming weeks, I'll share some additional coastal and beach craft ideas with all of you.