Looking to make some unique homemade Valentine’s Day greeting cards that also double as home decor? If so, you’ll love our pretty Valentine’s Day themed clam shells aka seashells! You can make several of them in just one weekend using 3-5″ wide clam shells and basic art supplies. If you don’t have access to seashells, you can paint these designs onto smooth river rocks or ceramic tiles.
If you enjoy painting on seashells or crafting with seashells…you’ll find over 170+ seashell craft projects right here on the Two Classy Chics blog! We will be sharing more seashell craft projects in the future too!
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We collected clam shells from the beach. Wash them in warm soapy water using Dawn Liquid Dish Soap. Why Dawn? It’s the best at removing sand, debris and fishy odors. Rinse with clean water and air dry overnight.
You can paint the design inside or outside the clam shell. We chose to paint the outside. No patterns or templates were used. Base coat the seashell in your desired color using 2 coats of acrylic craft paint. Allow for 40 minutes of drying between coats. If you want the paint to dry faster, place a fan in front of them (a table top fan works great) which greatly speeds up the drying time.
Use a pencil to sketch out the design directly onto the shell. To keep the painting process easy we used BETEM Acrylic Paint Markers that we picked up from Amazon. They contain acrylic paint, don’t clog, don’t drip, have no foul paint odors and the paint dries fairly quickly. They have dual-tips…use the medium tip to color in larger areas and the fine tip to do all of the wording and outlining in the design.
Look at our image for the designs that we made. You can copy it or use it as an inspiration to come up with your own. Let the paint thoroughly dry for 4-6 hours or until it’s no longer tacky. Once the paint is dry, you need to protect the painted surface by applying a clear coat sealer. You can brush on 2 light coats of Clear Mod Podge Sealer or spray 1-2 light coats of an Acrylic Spray Sealer. Either one will work fine. Let the shells dry.
To turn them into Valentine’s Day greeting cards you want to write your message on the other side of the seashell using a fine point Sharpie Marker. You can write any message that you would like or simply add a To and From. Let dry. That’s it, you’re done!
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