Craft Project: Painted Seashells for Summer Home Decor

Looking to spruce up your home for summer? Need to add some color to your flower beds and/or swimming pool areas? If so, we’ve got several fun and easy painted seashell designs to share with you today. All of these designs are perfect for the summertime season.

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This craft project can be completed by kids or adults. No artistic painting skills are required. For the project we used large 5″ wide or larger clam shells that we personally collected from our favorite beach. Before getting started you’ll want to thoroughly wash and air dry your seashells. I recommend letting them dry out in the hot sunshine for 24 hours.

If you enjoy painting on seashells or crafting with seashells…you’ll find over 80+ seashell craft projects right here on the Two Classy Chics blog! We will be sharing more seashell craft projects in the future too!

Painted Flip-Flops Design

Base coat your shell with 2 coats of acrylic craft paint and let dry. We found a FREE flip-flip template image online (Google search) and used that for our design. Resize it to fit your shell before printing it out. Then cut out the design, use a silver Sharpie Marker to trace the design onto the shell. We used 2 coats of medium pink paint for the flip-flops. To make the straps we used a medium-tip black paint marker and traced around each one and then made the straps. While the black is drying, dip the end of your paint brush into pink paint and place polka dots around the border…repeat again using white paint. Let dry. Once the straps are dry, dip the end of a round wooden toothpick into white paint and add the polka dots to the flip-flop straps. Let dry.

Beach Finds Design

Base coat your large clam shell with 2 coats of acrylic craft paint. While that one is drying you’ll want to paint your scallop seashell with 2 coats of paint. Let dry. Use E6000 adhesive glue to attach the scallop shell to the clam shell. Let dry for 2-3 hours. Use a white paint pen to add the words Beach Finds as shown in the above photograph. Let dry for a few hours.

Glitter Mermaid Design

My granddaughter loves glitter and anything sparkly. We found glitter acrylic paint at the craft store and used 3 coats of paint for the base coat on this shell. The paint is semi-sheer, hence why it needed the full 3 coats. Let dry. Use a medium-tip white paint pen to write on the word MERMAID. Dip the end of your paint brush into royal blue metallic paint and add a polka dot border around the perimeter. Let dry.

Metallic Beach Design

Give your shell 2 base coats of paint in your desired color. We used an icy blue color with a metallic finish. Once dry we used a medium-tip white paint pen to add the word BEACH, let dry. Dip the end of your paint brush into medium pink paint and add polka dots around the border. Repeat with white paint. Let dry.

Finishing Instructions: Once all of your seashells have dried you’ll want to take them outside. Give each one 2 light coats of spray acrylic sealer, let dry. Flip them over and give the other side 2 coats of the clear acrylic spray sealer. Let dry. For all of our shells we opted to use a spray sealer with a glossy finish. You can also use matte or semi-glossy, but we really like the “shine” that the glossy sealer gives them.

Decorating Ideas: You can use these painted seashells inside or outside your home. Display them on bookshelves, table-tops, counter-tops, etc. You can use them outside to add color and decoration to your flower beds, garden areas, front porch, back deck or around the swimming pool area. If displaying them outside, I do recommend bringing them indoors during the winter season if you live in an area that gets a lot of snow & winter weather.

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