The July 4th holiday is only a few weeks away and today we wanted to share an easy Kid’s Craft Project with all of you. If you’ve been following the Two Classy Chics blog for the past 3 years, you’ll already know that we love to paint on seashells and smooth river rocks. My 9 year old granddaughter loves adding new designs to our collection and we display them outside on the front porch or back deck. As the seasons change, we change out the seashell designs! Check out all of our painted seashell designs HERE!
Like the patriotic heard design you see in the photo below? That’s one of her designs from Valentine’s Day and it works equally as well with her patriotic designs too. You can re-visit our original Valentine’s Day Seashells post to get directions on how to make that one.
Kid’s Craft Project – Painted Patriotic Seashells
Large Clam Shells Seashells
White, Dark Blue and Red Acrylic Paint
Paint Brush, Water Dish and Paint Palette
Newspaper and Paper Towels
Clear Acrylic Spray Sealer – Glossy Finish
We used clam shells that we collected from the beach. They’re very large, measuring 6″ to 7″ in width. Make sure you wash them and thoroughly dry them before painting on them.
Cover your work surface with 2-3 sheets of newspaper. Kids can be messy painters, so you always want to protect your work surface. Fill up a plastic dish with water and let them use that and paper towels when changing out their colors. You can use a plastic butter-dish lid as a palette.
My granddaughter painted 2 coats of white acrylic paint across the entire outside of the seashell, allowing it to dry for 30 minutes between coats. She then painted on 3 red stripes, using 2 coats of red acrylic paint. She added the dark navy blue in the last section (see photo) and used 2 coats of blue paint.
As you can see, it’s her version of the American flag and to finish up her design she made her version of little white stars on top of the blue section. She couldn’t get her stars done correctly, so she ended up just making white X’s for her stars which I think looks perfectly fine!
Once all of the paint is dry…take your seashells outside and lay them on top of newspaper. Spray 2 coats of clear acrylic spray sealer on top, allowing 30-45 minutes to dry between the 2 coats. You’ll want to let them dry overnight to really seal in the painted design. You can now display them inside or outside!
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I like this idea of a craft to celebrate the holiday.
Your granddaughter has a good eye for design. She must be a proficient painter by now, too.
I’m really impressed with how well she does for a 9 year old. We’ve been doing crafts together since the age of 2, so I think that has really helped to advance her arts & crafts skills.
I so love patriotic themed crafts and I have never seen this one before it is super cute. I think we would all love to make these this year thanks for the great idea.
What a nice way to celebrate the 4th. We could do these and use them for our decorations at our family gathering.
I really like you painted shells. We will try this patriotic theme this time. Thank you for the idea.
You’re welcome! We have painted shells for every holiday and every season of the year. We will be sharing a lot more. We’re actually working on projects right now that uses small and medium seashells to build various animals. So far we’ve made a turtle and a frog. Working on an owl next. Will be sharing those projects too along with seashell candle holders, spoon rests, door wreaths & swags, decorated photo frames, refrig magnets, etc.
Another precious shell craft for the kids! I have really enjoyed all the different ideas you have shown over the past few months. This would be a fun craft for Vacation Bible School.