Petite Southern Belle

I love beach cottage style–mainly because I love the beach.  I saw a painted paddle for sale at a design store one day recently and thought, “I can do that!”.  I purchased a paddle from the sporting goods section at Wal-Mart for less than $15–much cheaper than the paddle at the design store.

Here is what it looked like before I did any painting–plain and boring or “oar”dinary.

Because it had a high gloss varnish, I started by rolling one coat of Zinsser primer on it, so that the paint would adhere to it without any problem.

After the primer was dry, I coated the entire front of the oar with the Waverly brand of chalk pain in Ivory.

I then used a starfish stencil that I purchased at Hobby Lobby to paint a starfish right in the middle of the flat part of the paddle.  I used the Waverly brand of chalk paint again, this time in Mineral, which is a nice warm gray.  As you can see, I used a sponge to dab the paint on carefully, so that no paint would bleed around the edges.

Next I taped off some stripes using blue painter’s tape and used the same color, Mineral, to paint stripes in different locations down the paddle.

After I removed all of the tape, I decided that the oar needed a pop of color, so I went back and taped off stripes around the already gray stripes with Waverly’s Ocean chalk paint.

When it was all dry, I placed it on my fireplace mantel.  I may hang it on the wall one day, but for now, it looks great in its new home!  It certainly isn’t “oar”dinary any more!  (Pardon my cheesy puns.)  Let me know what you think!

Hello October!  Fall really is my favorite time of year, and October has to be my favorite month.  I recently read a quote that said, “My favorite color is October”, and I couldn’t agree more!

This morning, it was a cool and crisp 66 degrees here in South Georgia, so I decided to take a walk around my aunt’s farm.  I thought I would share some pictures to get everyone in the fall mood.  The fields were full of yellow and purple flowers, gorgeous white cotton set to be harvested.  I even picked a few flowers to make a cute bouquet for a side table in my living room.

I can’t wait until the leaves officially start changing colors and the weather stays in the 60s or even lower.  It’s supposed to go right back up into the 80s here the rest of the week.  I hope your first day of October is a great one!