Shell Chic: The Ultimate Guide to Decorating Your Home With Seashells [Hardcover]

Marlene Hurley Marshall (Author), Sabine Vollmer Von Falken (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 19, 2002

Shell Chic brings the design and imagination of today's shell enthusiasts and artisans to the home. This is a book to be savored for its eccentric decorative flair, its lavish sense of fun, and its practical instructions for shell projects and design ideas that will work in any home decor. Frames, chandeliers, unusual boxes, mirrors, a child-size claw-foot tub - all are fabulous possibilities for shell encrustation. Memories of peaceful beach vacations become ravishing decorative items when glued to lampshades and screens.

In all, 14 step-by-step illustrated projects and 20 design ideas cover everything readers need to know to create richly marvelous objects. To lend inspiration, there are profiles of contemporary shell artists photographed with their creations. One profile features Marian McEvoy, editor of House Beautiful, who has embellished her Manhattan apartment with an estimated 15,000 shells. While most shell enthusiasts will not be working on quite this scale, there are ideas, photographs, profiles, and inspiration for all!

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The fashion for seashells as decorative material has taken a variety of forms over time, from baroque garden grottoes encrusted with shells to Victorian bric-a-brac displayed under glass. This well-illustrated book by Marshall and Vollmer von Falken (who coauthored Making Bits & Pieces Mosaics) contains step-by-step projects for traditional items of shell art such as flower arrangements and shell-encrusted boxes, all interspersed with a colorful running narrative describing decorative uses of shells by contemporary designers. Highly recommended for public libraries.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Not a guide to shell games, exactly, but to marvelously creative ways to use the fruits of the sea in and outside the home. In fact, Marshall has produced one of the most unusual crafts-home decor books yet--unusual in the more than 15 projects offered, in the elegant photography by Sabine Vollmer von Falken, and in the wealth of information on collectors, artists, history, and shell life. A profile of painter Ann Getsinger, who specializes in shells, nestles near the sidebar on the Sanibel Shell Fair, a juried show held during the first week of March. Recipes form the author's "Shell Buffet," in which she thanks all contributors to the book, and are featured in the same chapter as a profile of Elegant Cheesecakes, a pastry firm majoring in shell-ornamented cakes. Though well designed and aesthetically pleasing, projects detailed here wouldn't quite fit in the run-of-the-mill home, for these are inventive, imaginative, and almost 100 percent fantasy. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC; 1St Edition edition (August 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158017440X
• ISBN-13: 978-1580174404
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 0.7 x 11.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical methods for decorating with shells, November 10, 2002

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shell Chic: The Ultimate Guide to Decorating Your Home With Seashells (Hardcover)

Packed cover to cover with full-color photographs, Shell Chic: The Ultimate Guide To Decorating Your Home With Seashells by painter and artist Marlene Hurley Marshall is a practical and inspirational guide to using seashells for vibrant and dramatic visual effect in one's home. From eye-catching table centerpieces to dazzling furniture enhancement, the text describes the practical methods for decorating with shells and the wondrous photographs by Sabine Vollmer von Falken portray the opulent results in both historic and modern creations. Also very highly recommended for the do-it-yourself enthusiast is Marlene Marshall and Sabine von Falken's earlier work, Making Bits & Pieces Mosaics: Creative Projects For Home & Garden (1580170153; $$$$$)

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars absolutely beautiful!, September 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Shell Chic: The Ultimate Guide to Decorating Your Home With Seashells (Hardcover)

This is the most beautiful book I've ever seen. Whether you like making things with shells or just love the beach, you'll be inspired by page after page of unique and even elaborate uses for shells in the home. It will leave you craving the ocean and inspired to do beautiful things.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shellatious, September 29, 2005

By 

Francessca P. "Shellartist" (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shell Chic: The Ultimate Guide to Decorating Your Home With Seashells (Hardcover)

Whether you craft or only crave shells, this book will do it for you. This book provides inspiration whether you are a do-it-yourselfer or merely an admirer of shelled creations. The range is from the extraordinary to the amusing to the out of this world.