I’ve been hand-painting on seashells for over 20+ years. When I first started out I would just paint them solid colors or a very simple stripe or polka dot pattern. Over the years I’ve learned to do better designs that really stand out. If you enjoy crafting with seashells you’ll find over 200+ craft projects right here on the TCC blog. All of them are easy to make!
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My grandchildren love music. My granddaughter plays the violin and my grandson plays the guitar. Each grandchild wanted me to paint a music themed seashell for them to give to their music teacher. I decided to do a simple piano keyboard as you see in the photograph. The design is painted on a 4″ and 4 1/2″ wide clam shell.
To get started you need to base coat each shell with 1-2 coats of white acrylic craft paint. Allow 30 minutes of drying time between coats. Use a pencil to drawn a line horizontally through half of the shell. From there…draw vertical lines down which will serve as the piano keys. Paint the top half of the seashell with your desired color. I used metallic gold on one and green on the other. Let dry.
Tooli-Art makes the best fine tip paint markers that I’ve used. Using the black colored fine tip paint marker I added the music notes to the top half. Then using the same Tooli-Art Black Fine Tip Paint Marker I colored in and outlined the piano keys. You can do a simple design (like mine) or get more elaborate if you have the artistic skills. Let all of the paint dry for a few hours.
Once dry….you need to seal the design to protect the painted finish. I brushed-on two coats of Clear Mod Podge Sealer with a glossy finish. It goes on white but dries crystal clear. This will protect the paint from chips, cracks and color-fading. Well worth the extra step. Let everything dry overnight.
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