Office Updates & Shell Charger Progress: Welcome to the 171st Metamorphosis Monday!

Greetings!  How was your weekend?  What did you work on this weekend?  Do anything fun?

I have a couple of small little updates to share this week for Metamorphosis Monday.  I decided to remove the TV from the office since I found I only turned it on a couple of times a month.   You can see it in this older photo to the right of the wallpaper organizer, beside the lamp.  I guess I hadn't added the ottoman yet when this pic was taken.

In place of the television, I have a new little file organizer.  Sorry this pic is a bit dark; these photos were taken after dark.
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Pottery Barn Knock-off: Shell Chargers for Summer Dining

In March, right after I purchased cupcake stands from Pottery Barn for this Easter table setting,  out of curiosity I typed "Pottery Barn chargers" into the search engine on eBay.

This auction for shell chargers popped up.   Wow...shell chargers!  Not great for Easter but perfect for summer dining on the porch.  Unfortunately, the bidding quickly escalated to way beyond the amount I would have been willing to pay.
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Pottery Barn Knock-off: Double Bowl Hurricane Easter Tulip Centerpiece

I've been using a lot of fresh flowers in table settings lately.  Once those cold winter months are behind us, it's such a joy to bring fresh flowers into our homes.  One of my favorite flowers is the tulip.  It's almost impossible to think of spring and not think of beautiful tulips.

Tulips are a wonderful flower to give or receive for a birthday or for Mother's Day.  I've been the happy recipient of tulips on several previous Mother's Day.   Roses are always nice, but tulips are such a delightful surprise, not the same old, same old.

A few months ago I was shopping in Pottery Barn and I came across a vase that really caught my eye.  It was designed with a center vase for flowers and that was surrounded by a larger vase.  It was more or less, a vase within a vase and it opened up lots of possibilities for pretty centerpieces.

I couldn't find a picture of the vase online, but here's a screen shot of two of them being used by a Pottery Barn Floral Designer and Expert Sylist in this Pottery Barn You Tube Video found, HERE.  He calls it a "double bowl hurricane."

I really liked the design of the double bowl hurricane but not so much the $49.  So I decided to try and make my own.

I purchased two vases, one a bit larger than the other.

I found both in a local discount store.  The large vase was just $9.99 and the smaller one was on sale for $5.   You can see in the photo below, the smaller vase fit nicely down inside the larger one leaving about an 1 1/2 inches all the way around.  Before purchasing the vases, I checked to make sure the height of the center vase would work fine with that of the larger vase.  It was just right...not too tall and not too short.

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How to Make a Pottery Barn Inspired Flag! Welcome to the 129th Metamorphosis Monday!

Whenever the Pottery Barn catalog shows up in my mailbox, I know I'm going to be inspired. There's almost always something in there that grabs my attention and gets those creaky wheels in the brain turning. The challenge is always how to get "the look" without the cost. Right? :)

One of my last Pottery Barn inspired projects was Christmas garland for the columns of my front porch. (You'll find the full tutorial for the Pottery Barn Christmas Garland hack, HERE.)

Recently, I decided to do a complete a make-over of my screened-in porch for the 4th of July.

I had seen an awesome flag in a Pottery Barn catalog but the $129 price tag was way more than I wanted to spend. Also, the PB flag was 50" x 27", too large for what I had in mind. (Doesn't that light fixture look like a giant spider?)

So, what to do? I decided to try making my own. Before heading off to The Home Depot for supplies, I measured the area where I wanted to display the flag. I envisioned hanging it above the hutch for my 4th of July porch redo, replacing the large platter that normally lives there.
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