Hand Painted Oyster Shells

I don’t know about where you are, but here in Texas it’s hot! I’m talking hotter than the devil’s basement hot. I’ve been inside a lot more trying out a few new artistic projects. Today, I’m sharing hand painted oyster shells.

Before I could start my project, I had to first find some clean, sanitized oyster shells.

Who knew that you could find them on Amazon?

I found some great tutorials on how to use a napkin to decoupage oyster shells.

However, I found that it was hard to find patterned tissue, or napkins, with a small enough pattern to fit the shells.

You can even purchase downloadable chinoiserie patterns here.

Simply, purchase, download and print them off.

Which was fantastic.

However, my printer did not print them in the vibrant blue tones that I wanted.

So, I decided to hand paint them instead of decoupaging them.

After removing any dust from the shells, I painted the insides of each shell white.

Painting the inside of the shell white covers up any dark spots or irregularities.

This may require a couple of coats.

Once the white paint was dried, I painted all sorts of fun designs!

Since I was putting these in my living room, I decided to paint a few chinoiserie designs.

I also decided to paint a few free form designs.

Really, design wise, you are only limited by your imagination.

Since my living room colors are blues and whites I used those colors to paint my shells.

When the designs were dry, I gave them a couple of coats of glossy Mod Podge to protect them.

The finishing touch was painting the edges of my shells with a metallic gold paint to give the them a finished, upscale look.

These shells vary in size from 3 to 4 inches each.

Which would also make them perfect to place them in a bathroom or on a dresser to hold jewelry.

I’ve also seen them used as three dimensional art.

Simply glue your shell to the inside of a deep frame.

Ta-daaaa! Instant art.

I chose to put my hand painted oyster shells in a pretty bowl in my living room on a shelf.

I love all of the color and texture that they add visually.

Even though I hand painted most of mine, I still plan on keeping my eye out for some pretty napkins and tissue paper to decoupage a few more shells.

Maybe even making a few of these for fun gifties!

Until next time…