Summer home decor

Summer Home Decorations DIY  “Lookbook”

Hello friends! Summer is almost over, but before we get started with all the fall crafts and decorations I wanted to share what I’ve been up to as for summer decorating around my house.

Now of course I know it’s a little late in the season to share step by step DIY’s for summer decorations so I decided that a “lookbook” would probably make more sense for those of you that are still interested in anything summer related. I have to say, I’m still trying to enjoy what’s left of summer and even find myself still working on summer related decorations.

Are you in the same boat as me? Or are you ready to say goodbye to the summer and start pulling out your pumpkins and acorns?

I’ve shared a few of what I call a lookbook here on the blog for the last couple of years now. The word lookbook may sound a little funny since this is not a true book but when I think of a lookbook, I think of a lot of inspirational photos with little writing. Basically something that someone can look through for ideas, inspiration or even just for fun. So that’s kind of the idea that I worked with while making this blog post, something you can hopefully enjoy and be inspired by!

Ok, I hope you enjoy this collection of summer home decorations!

Summer Home Decorations DIY “Lookbook”

Here is a simple table decoration that anyone can easily bring together.

This came together with a few items that can easily be replaced with other similar supplies.

I started with turquoise ribbon from the Dollar Tree, brown packing paper, and white tissue paper.

Then I also have a vase from Walmart and a yellow faux flower for this arrangement.

All I did here is layer my turquoise ribbon, brown paper and white tissue paper in my vase.

FYI: The brown paper is what sometimes comes in delivery boxes. I love saving that paper whenever possible! It’s great to use around the house, great for crafting, and sometimes even for last minute gift wrapping or as a basket filler.

Then I removed the yellow flowers stem and leaves and placed it on top of the white paper for a simple but fun and bright decoration.

Don’t like the paper and ribbon look? Try layers of rocks, marbles or even wooden beads for a similar look.

There’s something about rocks and marbles that really work for me in the summer. I love using them in vases layered with other rocks and marbles of different colors and sizes. It gives everything a pretty beachy look!

Here I used small rocks and marbles mixed together just in the lower part of my vase and then wrapped burlap pink ribbon and twine around my vase.

(Amber votives are from Ikea.)

I filled my (very, very tall) vase with faux pink lilies that I also used last summer on this table. Large faux flowers like this, all on one stem, make it so easy to create centerpieces. You can just drop the stem of flowers in a vase and with a little stretching here and there they can look oh so beautiful.

My vase and votives all went on a Dollar Tree tray that I couldn’t help but add to finish off my centerpiece. I’m not quite sure if this really needed the tray honestly but I really wanted to add something else to bring everything together and thought that worked out great, for me at least.

Twine seems to end up in almost everything I make! It just seems to work so well with DIY home decor and crafting.

For this next one, I used twine to wrap around a long narrow vase (that I’ve had forever) and then added a mix of beads and decorative tiny crafting sea shells that me and my daughter got from the library, of all places 🙂

I used clear packing tape to keep my twine in place right around the back of the arrangement. I know, sounds kind of strange, but it works 🙂

You can hot glue the beads onto the twine but I really try to avoid using my hot glue whenever I can, hence the packing tape for my twine. I just don’t like waiting for it to heat up and find it kind of messy, so I used these adhesive dots cut down to very small pieces, to attach my beads and sea shells.

Yellow is such a perfect color for the summer time! It’s bright and happy and makes me think of the beautiful summer months.

I found these yellow flowers a few years ago at Walmart and have loved them and used them multiple times. You can see them in action here but for this arrangement I mixed them in with a few white flowers for another simple summer arrangement.

Blue crystal gems that remind me of the beautiful ocean water, yes please! Well, beautiful waters from the Caribbean that is, not the waters I see here in New York, sigh…

This arrangement uses a cylinder vase filled with a string iridescent beads, wooden beads, pretty blue gems, all from the dollar store and a few rocks for the bottom layer.

I topped this with a few faux Dollar Tree flowers to complete my centerpiece.

A few felt pineapples from the Dollar Tree…pink, green and white craft paper for the back of the pineapples, a few simple bows and pink rhinestones, and we have a few very cute dressed up pineapples!

I used these adhesive dots to paste everything together. They are pretty easy to work with. I just cut them down to small pieces depending on the size of what I’m working with and for these pineapples I needed very small pieces because of all the little holes shaping the pineapple.

Now my cute little pineapples are adding some summer cheer to my refrigerator with the help of good old masking tape. (Painters tape would work well too, just don’t confuse it for packing tape, that could ruin the paint). I had considered gluing on some magnets to the back of my coasters but figured I should keep it simple since summer is almost over.

Simple beach paintings dressed up with rhinestones, glitter and a raffia bow then framed with a few white mounts that I’ve had forever.

I used watercolors for the water, sand and blue fishies 🙂 then added a few seashells to the sand with colored pencils. There were a few areas that didn’t turn out the way I wanted so I just “fixed” those spots with some glitter to camouflage the errors.

I’m far from any expert when it comes to painting or drawing but I have to admit it’s so nice and even relaxing when I’m able to take some time to paint. I usually only get to enjoy painting when my daughter wants to sit and paint with me. We actually were painting together when I made these beach paintings.

White chrysanthemums in a recycled jar with, you guessed it, more beautiful rocks and gems. So pretty!

Lastly, a limes to lemon DIY gone wrong.

So I have a bunch of faux limes that I found at Target a few years ago. I’ve used them over and over again but now I decided why not paint a few of them yellow so they look like lemons. I picked up some crafting paint at the dollar store but sadly the paint just wouldn’t give me that intense yellow color that I wanted. About 3-4 coats of paint and I could still see the lime green peeking through.

But you know what, I actually still liked them anyway.

So they’ve been hanging out in my kitchen hutch all summer.

Sending happy, safe, and healthy vibes your way. May God bless you and your family today and every beautiful day to come!