How to Make a Seashell – Adorned Picture Frame

Crafts For Kids, Painting, Summer Crafts

This shell-adorned picture frame craft project is a summer-time classic beach craft, suitable for little kids, teenagers and adults alike. It is equally good for a rainy summer day as it is in the eve of a lovely day at the beach.

Photo: mosaic-tile-design.com

What you’ll need for a Shell Frame

* a handful of shells: one or more large ones and many smaller ones

* a bunch of fake pearls

* one or more picture frames – plain ones from a craft shop, dollar store or Ikea, or recyclable used ones from garage sales; a bit of sandpaper and a rag

* glue

* pastel color acrylic craft paint that complements your room colors as well as the shells

* optional: glitter and varnish

* old newspaper to protect your work area surface.

Shell Picture Frame Tutorial

1. Go to the beach and collect shells. If you live far from the beach, go to the dollar store and buy a little bag of shells instead. While there, pick up some fake little pearls as well, and some glitter or glitter glue.

2. Take a plain wooden picture frame (and paint it off-white or any other pastel color. Or, sand down another ugly frame that needs a facelift, dust it off with a cloth and paint over it.

Color Tip: Most craft paint sets only come in primary colors. No problem. If you don’t have the right color paint, mix! Use a recycled little yoghurt jar or similar to mix the paint.

To create suitable colors, try this: add a tiny bit of yellow and red into white paint, which is to give you a lovely warm off-white color. If you prefer an aqua blue color scheme in your room, add a tiny bit of blue in the white, with even less yellow. The trick is to be very moderate with the bright colors to get the right pastel result for your frame.

3. When the paint is dry, try out some arrangements with your shells on top of your frame. When you come to a composition you like, glue on the shells, starting with the largest.

Of course, you can put the shells on randomly rather than in a pattern. You may want to slightly overlap the shells. Put smaller shells in between the larger ones. Glue the pearls in between the shells after that, to fill some of the gaps.

4. To give your art that extra sparkle, rub on glitter glue at certain places on the shells, or rub on clear glue and sprinkle glitter. Let it dry. If you use sprinkle glitter, place a sheet under your frame before you begin. Then you need to turn over the frame when you’re done and collect any remaining glitter for future use.

5. To keep everything firmly together give the overall frame a shine, consider varnishing your entire frame. Use a clean brush. Let it dry.

6. Now that your frame is done, place lovely picture in it. If you want to put in a family beach photo, choose a black/white or slightly-toned photo, as that will look best with the pastel colors of the frame.

Shell Frame Ideas

I have collected a number of pictures of shell frames for you, each with a different look, to get your creative juices going.