I love decorating my home in the coastal beach style. I find the color palette to be relaxing and soothing. In our area, most people decorate their homes in a country style or modern style, so I enjoy being different!
Every time we go down to the beach (we live 3 1/2 hours from the Atlantic coast), I take long walks on the beach to go shelling. I collect seashells and have amassed a large collection of them over the years. I enjoy using them in my home decorating, using them to make yard art and in various craft projects.
When people go shelling they will often leave the broken seashells laying on the beach. Well, I don’t…I collect them. I keep all of the imperfect shells in a special box and still use them in my home decorating projects. I’m frugal and rarely let anything go to waste.
A few weeks ago I got out my imperfect seashells and decided to paint them. I used metallic acrylic paint in pretty beach colors of turquoise, raspberry, purple and silver. In addition to the imperfect shells, I painted some of the small smooth pebbles and pieces of driftwood that I had found over the years too!
Once they were all dry I used my newly painted goodies as home decor accents. I placed some of them into clear glass vases, cylinders, candle holders, white wicker baskets, onto charger plates, etc.
One of my favorite ways to use them is tossed into a large genuine abalone shell as shown in the photographs. To break-up the tropical colors I mixed in some of my natural starfish and small sand dollars. I think these type’s of arrangements look super cute and they’re affordable to make!
The next time you’re at the beach make sure you collect some seashells that you find lying around on the beach and don’t forget the imperfect & broken ones! Do you collect seashells? How do you like to use them to decorate your home?
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I have a small collection of seashells in 2 glass dishes. I love the metallic colors on these seashells.
I love all the colors!!! I wish we were close to a beach. About 20 years ago I go a HUGE bag that hubby and hs family had collected and brought back from Spain! (they were military) No one wanted them, and I have had them in a little are and have had to keep adding over the years since they do break down. I have always loved shells and you are so creative with them!
We have been at the beach at least once a week all summer long and we do pick up seashells and have quite a collection. I am nowhere near as creative as you with how I use them but we have done many of your crafts and they have all turned out fantastic.
Keep collecting them! I have pre-written 32 more crafting with seashells craft posts and have them spread out from now through spring of next year. I’ll keep you all busy! We use a lot of clam shells, mussels shells, oyster shells and I have a few projects that utilize starfish and sand dollars too!
This is such a clever idea and I love the look of it. I would love to put this in our bathroom as a decoration thank you for the great idea never thought of painting some of my seashells.
I like to use my imperfect shells for projects like this one. So, it’s a great project for the broken and chipped seashells.
I bet you have a pretty house with all these shell crafts. I like these the best of the crafts I have seen. They are very unique.