Kid’s Craft Project – Hand Painted Clam Shell Garden Art

For the past few months I’ve been featuring several children’s craft projects with all of you that I’ve been doing with the Princess Gia over the summer. These kid’s craft projects have gotten a good reception from all of you that we will be continuing them throughout the fall and holiday season!

Today’s kid’s craft project is a very simple one that only cost’s a few pennies to do! When we sat down to make these hand-painted clam shells it kept the Princess busy for 4 solid hours! Once they were all done drying these clam shells made their way into our flower beds at my house and at hers!

Kid’s Craft Project: Hand-Painted Clam Shells

Medium and Large Surf Clam Shells
Variety of Acrylic Paint Colors
Paint Brush
Clear Acrylic Spray Sealer in a Can
Newspaper
Empty Margarine Bowl and Water

For this project we used surf clam shells that we collected from the beach when we were down at our beach house in late June. Cost…nothing! Lay out some old newspaper to protect your table surface. Place water in the empty margarine bowl and use the plastic lid as a painting palette.

You can use whatever paints you have on-hand. We used a few colors that were left-over from a painting kit that she had and then supplemented those with some acrylic paints that I put on the plastic bowl lid.

Let the kids get creative. They can paint really fancy designs or let them just scribble paint like she did. She’s only six years old and I think she did a really good job painting her new clam shells. Leave the shells dry for a complete 8 hours or overnight.

Take them outside and lay them down on newspaper and lightly spray each side with clear acrylic sealer. Let dry for 4-6 hours and repeat with a second coat. This will protect them while out in the weather elements. There ya go! A simple and frugal craft project for the kids!

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