Brighton Beach Houses

I was "chatting" with someone the other day about a road trip my husband and I did a few years ago along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria.  It brought to mind some of the things we saw on that trip, one of them being the famous changing rooms on Brighton Beach in Melbourne.  These little "houses" are decorated in bright colours and make a fabulous scene, here's a photo:

Beach "Houses", Brighton Beach, Victoria. Australia

These beautiful little bits of cheer inspired me to create a wooden tissue box when I returned home.  I made a pattern from a box I bought in a discount store and my lovely Dad got cutting and gluing for me, then I drew up a pattern for the decorating, here's the finished result -

The sand along the bottom of the piece is sand from my garden - all I did was wash it and mix it with glue then plaster it on, it worked really well.  The hooks for the towel are just painted on, I think it would have looked good with little brads stuck on as hooks, but I wasn't card making at this stage, and hadn't even heard of brads, lol.  I couldn't quite get the shape of the thongs (flip flops if you're in England, jandles if you're in New Zealand!!) right, so I "buried" them in the sand :)  I have done a few tissue boxes in this sort of birdhouse style, but using other peoples patterns not my own, I always intended to paint more of these little beach houses in different patterns, I haven't got around to it yet, but maybe one day I will - when I haven't got anything else to do Ha Ha!!I