Sea Turtle Bathroom Decor- Pinterest Inspired Creativity

If you have read my About Me page, you know that a big item on my bucket list is to see baby sea turtles hatch on the beach. For whatever reason sea turtles are a weakness of mine, so when I saw this pillow on Pinterest I naturally fell in love. It doesn't help that I am a sucker for green too! Unfortunately the real thing was definitely out of my price range so I pinned it for safe keeping and thought on it.

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When I decided to paint the kids' bathroom green with teal, I realized sea turtles might work as a theme. Cute, but not too cutesy. The deal was sealed when I found this soap dish on clearance. 

I looked for a similar sea turtle print online or even a fabric I could use, but to no avail. I decided I would have to just create my own. I originally wanted to stamp the turtles, but couldn't find a reasonable way to do it in such a large size. They had to be done free hand. I measured out three 5"x7" and an 11"x14" peice of paper  and started sketching from the picture I had printed up of the original pillow. 

Next I used some acrylics to mix up the right shade of green. And I then got to painting. After the paint dried, I added a coat of gloss varnish just to give the flat paint and paper a sheen.

I then had to find my frames. I thrifted some and was planning on painting them white, but ended up liking the original brown wood quite well. One dilemma I ran into was finding a frame for the 11x14 print. I wanted to mat all of the prints, but the larger frames were too expensive, even at the thrift store, for this DIY. I brought home a 70's era 11x14 frame with the strip of cream canvas around the inner edge. I decided to paint a faux-mat around the inside edge of the frame over the canvas with white paint. It worked great!

I am really quite happy with how my momma and baby sea turtles turned out. Funny how small bits of inspiration can turn into creative things that you love. So take it from me- when you see something on Pinterest that you love, try to figure out what it is specifically that you love and then take it from there.