July 4th Shell Art - Kid's Paint Project

This project was inspired by a friend's post on Facebook. She posted a picture of painted shells laid out in a flag shape. It was so cute and I had never seen anything like it. I knew I had to copy it, since we live near the beach and my boys love to help with my projects, and July 4th is my favorite holiday.......here is our version!



A few weekends ago we were visiting family south of us, mostly because I had a Triathlon there that weekend, but also because it was a great excuse to see family! On the beach were tons of these little shells. They were all around the same size and many were very white.....so I thought (as I was checking out the large swells in the ocean and wishing I had not signed up for an ocean Tri)....these shells are perfect for my shell project! When we all went to the beach later that day, I collected over 50.

I brought them home, and laid them out to get the sizes correct.

Then I let the boys help me paint. We kept the white shells, white (surprise...) and painted shells red and blue. This was a great break from our packing up the house. The boys needed to be distracted and entertained and my Mom helped them while I kept packing......thanks Mom!!!!



Then I found a scrap piece of wood and stained it with a gel stain in Java. When that was dry I waxed it. It is not perfect, the edges of the wood were a little splintered, I sanded it a lot, but you can still see the imperfections. But hey, I let the boys paint the shells, so they are imperfect also. The paint is not covering the shells completely, but they did it! The only painting I did was to add the stars with a paint pen.
After the wax dried we all put the shells on the wood with hot glue. Because hot glue is, well.....HOT....I did not let the boys use the glue. I put it on the shells and then placed the shell on the wood and they pressed on it to make sure it was on there good. We call that teamwork.



After we were done I had them sign the back, which they each did. I will treasure this little art piece forever!!!! Here they are looking proud.



Here is a close up so you can see how not perfect it is (even though it is perfect in my eyes).



Here is one last picture of our shell flag. I have loved seeing all the patriotic art and craft projects in blogland. Hope you enjoyed our project.



Click this link to see my other July 4th project, a Rustic Painted Flag from an dirty old fence board!

Have a great Fourth of July holiday!




I'm linking to these fantastic blogs: Between Naps on the Porch, I Gotta Try That, Cozy Little House, Green Willow Pond