Easy Paint Pour Painted Seashell Designs

Have you tried paint pouring yet when it comes to painting seashells and river rocks? If not, give it a try! It’s an easy way for you and the kids to paint them! You don’t need any artistic skills and you don’t need a lot of art supplies to make them. It’s one of the easiest ways to decorate them.

Here are the supplies that you’ll need:

Seashells or Smooth River Rocks
Paint Pouring Medium
Several Bottles of Acrylic Craft Paint
Clear Acrylic Spray Sealer – Glossy Finish
Plastic Drop Cloth (something to protect your surface as this can get messy)
Old Plastic Placemat

Note – For paint pouring I like to use plastic medicine cups. You know…those little plastic cups that come with liquid cough medicine, infant fever reducer, etc. They’re the perfect size for mixing the acrylic craft paints.

Make sure all shells and rocks are clean and dry. Decide on a color scheme. I like using only 3-4 colors that work well together. See my photograph for some ideas on colors that play nicely together.

Squirt a few drops of each color into the plastic medicine cup. For example on the patriotic one I used Navy Blue, Medium Blue, White and Red acrylic craft paint colors. I squirted 3 drops of navy blue, 2 medium blue, 2 red and 2 white into the cup. Add several drops of a paint pouring medium (see above) to the cup with the paint. Gently move the cup side to side to kind of swirl the paint colors together. You don’t want to stir them together as that will make an entirely new color!!!

We like to paint pour over the kitchen sink so that as the paint runs off the shells we can easily wash it down the drain. Gently pour the paint out of the cup and onto the seashell. As you’re doing that…move the seashell around to let the paint run over all surfaces of the shell. You want to cover it all. As you move the shell around the paint runs and makes beautiful swirl-type of designs.

Once it has been covered in paint place it on an old plastic placemat to dry. Don’t have one? A sheet of aluminum foil works great as a non-stick surface too! It will take a few hours for them to air dry. After drying…you’ll want to have an adult take them outside to spray each one with 1-2 coats of a Clear Acrylic Spray Sealer. We used one with a glossy finish. This protects the painted surface. Let dry for several hours.

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