Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

After I recovered my old couch - here's another picture of her with me and Bobbie McGee in 1996 - I had an empty(ish) spot in the sunroom and a drop cloth that had been covering said couch.

I sure do miss my little Bobbie McGee!

I had been trying to gradually beachify my sunroom, and in the course of my research on how to do this on the cheaps, I came across many tutorials on how to turn a paint drop cloth into an area rug. I was intrigued because I had the stuff to make this happen.

I had originally thought about painting white coral onto a cheap area rug that we had in the basement, but when I came across the drop cloth idea, I decided to use the old rug as a backer to the "new" rug.



Note: While I was looking for leftover paint in the basement, I found some green shelves that have been patiently waiting for me to donate, and I decided to throw those into the project. Another beachy project in the works was converting my wooden TV trays into something I might have in my beach house. IF I had a beach house... I was planning on white-washing these items, but the white paint was dried out and I decided to scrap the coral. I also decided to go with items I've actually found at the beach.

I printed a stencil worthy manatee, sand dollar, starfish (ok I have never found a starfish on the beach, but it was in the original pile of ideas) and conch shell, then traced them onto cardboard and made my stencils. I washed the drop cloth and then folded it over the old rug, attaching the cloth to the rug with Gorilla tape.  I used a foam brush and dabbed a few manatees onto the rug, then a few not too pleasing sand dollars, then some conch and I finished with the starfish.



It was easy and fun to do and while it's not perfect, I like it and it's done!!!