Live at the beach? Take a summer vacation to your favorite seashore location? Got some seashells lying around? If so, we have 4 easy to paint beach and seashore themed seashell designs to share with you. All of these designs were painted onto small and medium clam shells. You can use other type’s of shells too! Don’t have access to shells? You can easily paint these designs onto landscaping rocks or smooth river stones too!
Check out the 400+ painted seashells and painted kindness rock ideas we have on the TCC blog!
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You need to wash all of them in warm soapy water. I like to use Dawn Liquid Dish Soap. It’s the best to remove dirt, sand, debris and fishy odors. Rinse with clean water. Lay them out on a towel to air dry overnight.
Base coat all of the shells with 1-2 light coats of white acrylic craft paint. If you want to speed up the drying time between coats use a desk fan…have it blow cool air over the tops of them as they’re drying. You can cut drying time in half! By giving them a base coat the colors you will apply on top will be MORE vivid.
Look at the photograph in this post to give you inspiration for your design. Use a pencil to lightly sketch your design onto the shell.
They can be painted one of two different ways.
1. You can use acrylic craft paint along with a paint brush.
2. You can use a pack of BETEM Acrylic Paint Markers. These have dual-ended tips, requiring no priming, no drippy messes and no foul paint odors.
I personally use a combination of both! I’ll paint the background using a brush and paint. I’ll do the design work using the BETEM Acrylic Paint Markers. You’ll want to use the medium tip to fill-in the larger areas and the fine tip to fill-in the smaller areas, to do outlines and to write wordage. I really like using both methods.
If you want to attach tiny shells, beads, charms, buttons, etc. to the shells you need to adhere them using Gorilla Glue. Don’t use hot glue…they will eventually fall off! PLEASE use Gorilla Glue which gives you a very nice strong bond! A tiny dab of the glue works perfectly. Let everything dry for a few hours.
Finally, you need to seal-in the paint and embellishments. I like to brush on 1-2 light coats of Clear Mod Podge Sealer. It goes on white but dries crystal clear. I like the one that gives everything a glossy finish. If you’re adhering things onto the shells you may want to use a Clear Spray-On Acrylic Sealer. If you use that….please use it outside as it does have fumes! Let all the shells dry overnight.
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