The July 4th holiday is only a few weeks away and today we wanted to share an easy Kid’s Craft Project with all of you. If you’ve been following the Two Classy Chics blog for the past 3 years, you’ll already know that we love to paint on seashells and smooth river rocks. My 9 year old granddaughter loves adding new designs to our collection and we display them outside on the front porch or back deck. As the seasons change, we change out the seashell designs! Check out all of our painted seashell designs HERE!

Like the patriotic heard design you see in the photo below? That’s one of her designs from Valentine’s Day and it works equally as well with her patriotic designs too. You can re-visit our original Valentine’s Day Seashells post to get directions on how to make that one.

Kid’s Craft Project – Painted Patriotic Seashells

Large Clam Shells Seashells
White, Dark Blue and Red Acrylic Paint
Paint Brush, Water Dish and Paint Palette
Newspaper and Paper Towels
Clear Acrylic Spray Sealer – Glossy Finish

We used clam shells that we collected from the beach. They’re very large, measuring 6″ to 7″ in width. Make sure you wash them and thoroughly dry them before painting on them.

Cover your work surface with 2-3 sheets of newspaper. Kids can be messy painters, so you always want to protect your work surface. Fill up a plastic dish with water and let them use that and paper towels when changing out their colors. You can use a plastic butter-dish lid as a palette.

My granddaughter painted 2 coats of white acrylic paint across the entire outside of the seashell, allowing it to dry for 30 minutes between coats. She then painted on 3 red stripes, using 2 coats of red acrylic paint. She added the dark navy blue in the last section (see photo) and used 2 coats of blue paint.

As you can see, it’s her version of the American flag and to finish up her design she made her version of little white stars on top of the blue section. She couldn’t get her stars done correctly, so she ended up just making white X’s for her stars which I think looks perfectly fine!

Once all of the paint is dry…take your seashells outside and lay them on top of newspaper. Spray 2 coats of clear acrylic spray sealer on top, allowing 30-45 minutes to dry between the 2 coats. You’ll want to let them dry overnight to really seal in the painted design. You can now display them inside or outside!

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Over the past 14 months we’ve featured many different hand-painted seashell designs here on the blog. I have to admit, those crafting with kids posts are some of the most popular posts here on the blog! Thank you!!! With that said, some of our readers told us that they’re not artistic or crafty enough to do free-hand painting. Well, today we’re solving that problem for all of you!

This craft project is perfect for kids or adults…with or without any crafting/painting experience. A few months ago we reviewed the Paint Brush Pen & Stencil Set from Yoobi and you can re-visit that post to learn more about that craft kit. We used that same kit today to make the project that we’re featuring below.

If you love crafting with seashells, you can find over 4 dozen seashells craft projects right here on Two Classy Chics blog! Many of these projects can be done with smooth river rocks too!

Craft Project – Painted Seashells for Summer Yard Art

Large Clam Seashells
Plastic Stencils
Acrylic Paint in Desired Colors
Paint Brush, Water Dish, Paint Palette
Newspaper and Paper Towels
Clear Acrylic Spray Sealer – Glossy Finish

These large clam shells and seashells are really easy to make, so I’ll skip over giving you all of the little detailed instructions and just give you some tips.

I recommend that you give your seashells 2 good coats of paint, letting each coat dry for at least 30 minutes before applying another coat. Next, I recommend using a paint brush and not a foam brush. Why? A paint brush gets into all of the tiny ridges, nooks and crannies of the seashells.

Once your base coat is dry, tape the desired stencil design down using scotch tape. If you don’t want to do that method, you can use a pencil and lightly trace the design onto the seashell and then just hand-paint the design in. If you’re taping down the stencil, use a foam brush to apply the paint. Don’t overload the foam brush with the paint, that way it won’t leak underneath the stencil.

Always rinse off your plastic stencils immediately after using them with warm, soapy water to remove the paint. Towel dry. When storing stencils, lay them flat. Store brushes with the bristles up in a pencil can, old jar or cup. Never store them with the bristles down!

Finally, don’t skip on using the clear acrylic spray sealer! It comes in matte, semi-matte and glossy finishes. By spraying your artwork with the sealer, you’re protecting the painted surface from cracking, chipping and fading. It also means you can use your items indoors or outdoors!

* This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, we may or may not receive a small commission which helps to support this site. Thank you!