I love to collect seashells and use them in various arts and craft projects around my home. I’ve used seashells to make windchimes, refrigerator magnets, Christmas tree oraments, figurines, table decorations, as party favors, and so much more! They’re a FREE resource given to us by nature! Love to paint on shells? You’ll find 100+ painted seashell designs on the TwoClassyChics blog!
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The 3 larger designs were painted on large 4″ to 5″ wide clam shells. The smaller design was painted on a 3″ wide clam shell. You need to wash all seashells in warm soapy water to remove sand, debris, and fishy odors before crafting with them. Let them thoroughly air dry before painting on them.
You want to start out by base coating the shell with 2 coats of acrylic craft paint in the desired color. Allow for 30 minutes of drying time between coats. The designs were painted with acrylic craft paints along with a paint brush. The smaller accents and wordage was done with acrylic paint pens. Free-handed designs were first sketched onto paper with a pencil and then sketched onto the shell.
The 4 Beach Summer Designs that I made feature the following:
* Summer Sunshine
* Lighthouse with Sunset Background
* Seagull
* Seas the Day Sunrise over the Ocean
These designs are EASY to do! You don’t need to be a professional artist at all. I’m certainly not. If you’re not comfortable free-handing the designs you can always find FREE Templates using Google Image Search. You’ll have to resize the images to fit onto the shells before printing out the templates. If you don’t wnt to mess with any of that then I recommend picking up 3″ size beach stencils to make painting the designs super easy.
Once the paint has dried it’s important that you preserve the seashell by spraying it with 1-2 light coats of a Clear Acrylic Spray Sealer. This will preserve the shell and protect the painted finish. Plus, you can display them inside or outside of the home. If you’re displaying them outside…I suggest 2 generous coats of spray on each side of the shell.
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I always take pictures of your painted shells. for my great niece. She likes to go through and pick which one she want to do……………………….. but of course most of the time the colors change
They are so pretty. I love the lighthouse and seagull seashell especially.