Craft Project: Coastal Beach Seashell Photo Frames

Looking for a way to preserve some beach vacation memories? If so, you can make these Seashell Photo Frames for less than $2.00 each! Once completed you can pop in a photograph from your family’s beach vacation.

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For this project we picked up silver colored picture frames from our local Dollar Tree store for $1.00 each. We chose silver so that we wouldn’t have to repaint the frames and the silver color blends-in and goes nicely with the color of the seashells. They have 4″ by 6″ and 5″ by 7″ picture frames for $1.00 each, plus tax. The ONLY thing I need to do is make a colored photo mat to go into our frame. The white is too much…so I’ll be going out next weekend to pick up some light aqua-colored cardstock and cutting it down to fit inside. That will give it the pop of color it needs.

You’ll need to collect seashells from the beach while you’re on vacation. You’ll need a lot of small shells. Once you get home you’ll need to wash them in warm soapy water and then let them thoroughly dry. All of the sand and debris needs to be removed from them…plus washing them will remove those fishy odors too!

For this project we used a hot glue gun and hot glue. If you’re doing it with children you’ll want to choose a different type of glue to use or supervise them very closely if using a hot glue gun. We used a total of 4 glue sticks to attach all of the shells around the perimeter of our 4″ by 6″ photo frame.

In the bottom left corner we added some additional shells along with a faux pearl to dress it up a little bit more. I love decorating in neutral tones, so I left my shells in their natural state. You could certainly paint them or use colored shells if desired.

To finish up…I popped the glass out of the frame. Outside I sprayed it with two coats of clear acrylic spray sealer. I wanted to protect them from discoloring over the years and the frame will be easier to clean during dusting time. This step is totally optional.

As you can see…a really easy craft project that doesn’t cost a lot of money. A nice way to display some of those summer vacation photographs too!

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