I recently found this pretty butterfly art canvas, on clearance at Pier 1… for only $7.00!  [P.S.  they had several others, so check it out if you’re looking for inexpensive art]  Its price and beautiful subject matter inspired me to think about the possibility of a unique color palette for my Spring mantel.

Aqua is such a trendy color now AND it’s so perfectly refreshing for Spring!  And I’ve always thought of butterflies as works of art, so I’m happy to see them becoming a popular home goods subject matter.   For Spring, I thought it would be fun to combine them with the other popular newborn in Spring – birds – to create a unique color combination… just as in nature.

To bring this pretty look together, I searched for inexpensive, but beautifully designed birds that were neutral enough to go (but not compete) with such a rich, substantial color combination.  I lucked out and found these white-on-white beauties!  And I just love how they have such a unique combination of flat & glossy finishes, making their vine & floral design stand out even more.  Plus – their neutral color will go with pretty much any color combination, in the future.  If you like them too, I picked up a few extras… you’ll find them in my store.

 

I also wanted to include a home for my birds, so I pulled out my old bird cage.  You might recognize it from previous Spring and Halloween designs (below) where I painted it to match the theme –

 

     

And all I needed was a can of aqua spray paint to turn my bird cage into a Spring color, once again!

HINT:  Repainting decorations is a great way to recycle and stretch your budget

     

And while the aqua spray paint was in-hand, I also painted a little bit of paper, gift bag filler (I already had) to create a new spring look

to tuck under each of my white birds.  This idea would also work with straw or moss.

If you’ve been following my creativity, you’ll probably recognize the shabby chic, white (thrift store) frame

from previous design ideas – Valentine’s Day and Spring 2012. [click on each of these holidays to see those ideas]

This time, I used it to highlight (and enlarge) my new, $7.00 canvas print by adding 4 small spots

of (easy to remove later) hot glue to the non-visible, back corners of the canvas.

Using 5 branches of Springy yellow blossoms, a few, blue eggs, inexpensive paper butterflies and

orange scrapbook paper (to the back of the bird cage) added the finishing touches.

HINT:  Purchase silk florals after the season.  Although selection dwindles, the longer you wait, the better the discount,

and I have learned that finding 5 of a kind is not hard and feels great when I pick them up at 90% off.

I hope you like my unique color combination for Spring… it was a fun challenge! 🙂

Enjoy the Creativity!