Decorating for St. Patrick’s Day can be a lot of fun. I don’t go overboard decorating but I do like to put out a few things every year…include a few new ones. This year I made these St. Patrick’s Day themed seashells for table decor. We always have a nice Irish themed meal for St. Patty’s Day.

All are made using smaller sized seashells, mostly 3 to 3 1/2″ wide clam shells but a few cockle and scalllop shells too. A combination of painted and decoupage designs. Here’s a list of the materials that you’ll need to make them.

Clam Shells or a Variety of Seashells
St. Patrick’s Day Themed Cotton Fabric Scraps
Mod Podge in Glossy Finish (sealer)
Foam Brush
Scissors
Acrylic Craft Paints and Paint Brush
BETEM Acrylic Paint Pen Markers
Black Fine Tip Sharpie Marker

Use the Sharpie to trace around the outline of the clam shell to get the shape and approximate size of fabric that you’ll need. Use scissors to cut it out. It should be slightly smaller in size than the seashell.

Base coat all of the seashells in your desired color of acrylic craft paint. For the one….I used black because the fabric swatch had a black background. I painted several others white to go with that fabric background and yellow. Let dry for 1 hour or until the paint is no longer tacky.

For the 2 clam shells (top row) I decoupaged the fabric to the inside of one shell (the black one) and outside of the other (white one) using Mod Podge Clear Sealer and a foam brush. Be generous with the amount of Mod Podge that you’re using. Let dry.

Once they were done trying I trimmed them up with either black paint or gold metallic paint around the edges. It gives them a nice finished look. Let dry. Once dry, give them one final coat of Mod Podge to seal in the fabric and the paint. Let dry overnight.

The bottom row seashells I did differently. Painted them first. Then I used scissors to cut the St. Patrick’s Day shamrocks out of the cotton fabric. I used fine tip BETEM Acrylic Paint Markers to add wordage. If you want to trim the edges in gold metallic paint…do that now. Let dry. Once they’re dry…time to decorate. Use the Mod Podge and a foam brush to adhere the cut-outs onto the shells. Then coat the entire seashell with Mod Podge. Let dry for several hours.

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We live in Pennsylvania and one of the most popular outdoor hobbies is hiking! We have beautiful state parks and local parks with hiking trails, waterfalls, etc. Millions of people come to Pennsylvania from all around the world to hike the Appalachian Trail which runs through central Pennsylvania. In honor of Pennsylvania’s great history of hiking trails…we painted two large clam seashells.

We collected 4″ and 5″ wide clam shells from the beach. You can certainly use smaller sized seashells. The background colors were added with acrylic paint and a paint brush. You’ll need 2-3 coats of acrylic craft paint with 30 minutes of drying time between coats.

From the internet we printed out an outline of the state of Pennsylvania using a FREE image from Google Image Search. Of course…you’ll need to resize it before printing to make sure it will fit onto the shell. Print it out and use that as your template. The PA STATE was then painted onto the shell using an Acrylic Paint Pen Marker in a light beige color. A dot was added onto the map to show one of our favorite places to go hiking. Use paint pen markers to add dots around the border. Let dry.

Optional – You can use a Paint Pen Marker to write on the back of the seashell the name of your favorite State Park, Hiking Trail and/or dates you visited to keep it as a keepsake.

The second design has a unique background color. Yellow, Orange and dark Red paints were muddled together while still wet to come up with a sunset background of colors. Let dry. Use a dark brown paint pen marker to make the trail and the trunk of the pine trees. Pennsylvania is known for its pine trees! Then use light, medium and dark green paint pen markers to make the simple-looking pine trees.

Once the seashells are dry you want to take them outside and spray them with 2-3 coats of a Clear Acrylic Spray Sealer. Allow for 30-40 minutes of drying time between coats. This will protect the painted finish and help to preserve the clam shell.

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