Live along the coast or just enjoy coastal living? If so, instead of having a traditional Easter Egg Hunt go out and collect large clam shells, bring them home, paint them up and then use them for the egg hunt! You’ll want to start this project a few weeks ahead of time if you plan on painting & hiding a lot of seashells. Here’s what you need to do.
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We collected large clam shells measuring at least 4″ wide from the beach. Bring them home and wash them in hot, soapy water. Use a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser or a bottle brush to help loose sand & debris. Rinse until clean. Lay them out on a large towel to air dry which will take 1-3 days depending on the weather.
You’ll want to use a combination of acrylic craft paints and paint pens to make your designs. For the base coats and larger areas use a paint brush and acrylic craft paint. Let those areas dry. Then go back over them with a medium-tip acrylic paint pen to do the smaller areas or to add fun designs. Let them completely dry until the paint is no longer tacky.
On a good weather day take them all outside. I like to lay mine down on an old plastic drop cloth. Spray each side of the large seashell with 1-2 coats of clear acrylic spray sealer. I prefer using the “glossy finish” but you could certainly use the matte finish. Let them completely dry.
Spraying them with the clear sealer protects the painted surface from fading and chipping. You can now use them for the outdoor Easter Egg Hunt! Afterwards they can be used year after year as Easter decorations or collect them from all of the kids, award prizes and store them for next year to use all over again. Fun!!!
This is a great idea for parents who are worried about using real hard-boiled eggs outside where they can obtain germs or spoil in the weather. We had a group of adults help us paint up our Seashell Easter Eggs along with 3 children ages 11 to 14. We all enjoyed working on them!
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This is a different way of doing Easter “eggs”. They are very attractive , but I still prefer regular dyed eggs.
Those are very fun Easter eggs. Good idea to have them instead of boiled eggs.
What a great idea! My great niece is spending friday with me and she loves to do painting stuff. I have a bag of while shells from the dollar tree and the paints and pens. She will have a lot of fun doing this
Wow when I first saw the picture for this post I had no idea that these were seashells. You did a really great job painting these. This is so clever and cute and make a neat Easter decoration.