Beautiful Hand-Painted Horseshoe Crab Shells

For the past 5 years my family has participated in programs that help to promote horseshoe crab conservation. Thousands of them die every year when they’re washed up onto a beach, caught in fishing nets, stuck on rocky jetty’s, etc. These crabs play an important part in our marine ecosystem and often times people don’t give them a second thought.

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We like to volunteer our time a few times a year to help these crabs to survive. We walk the beach (especially during breeding season) looking for stranded crabs and return them back into the water. However, we often find deceased crabs too!

Recently I’ve taken an interest in preserving deceased horseshoe crab shells to help raise awareness. I will collect the shells, clean them out, preserve them and then paint them with pretty designs. I never, EVER kill a living crab. EVER! I only paint on the shells of those who are now deceased. If you ever find a living crab…please return it to the water.

If you would like to learn How To Preserve Horseshoe Crabs you can check out a post that I recently published for how-to information. Once the shell has been preserved you can naturally put them on display throughout your home. They look beautiful sitting on a shelf, displayed on a table top, hanging on the wall, etc.

For those of you who like unique things with a lot of color…you can certainly hand paint beautiful designs onto your shells. The one that I’m featuring in my post today was preserved using the method that I highlighted above (click that link). Once preserved…I sat down and painted him.

I used acrylic craft paints with a metallic finish that are readily available at local craft supply stores and from Amazon. For the base coat…I used 2-3 coats of paint to get the coverage that I wanted. You will want your base coat to thoroughly dry before adding additional designs & colors on top. I recommend just painting the outer shell, there is no need to paint the underside. You can paint simple designs or elaborate ones…that’s entirely up to you!

Once all of your paint has thoroughly dried you’ll want to take it outside and spray 2 good coats of clear acrylic sealer in a glossy finish on top. This will protect your painted design from chipping, cracking and fading. Plus it will add additional strength to the fragile shell.

I’ve taken up hand-painting horseshoe crab shells as a new hobby and so far I’ve painted 16 of them. Each one is different and unique. I’ve also taken the time to educate others about horseshoe crab conservation and to help raise awareness. So, what do you think? Do you like them?

If you enjoy painting on seashells or crafting with seashells…you’ll find over 70+ seashell craft projects right here on the Two Classy Chics blog! We will be sharing more seashell craft projects in the future too!