DIY Giant Seashell Seahorse

This is my first time making a large piece of seashell art and I’m in love with this DIY Giant Seashell Seahorse!

I’ve always admired seashell art and this one was inspired by the many seashell seahorse pieces that I’ve seen on the web. While I didn’t take step-by-step pictures, I think this DIY craft is fairly simple to recreate. All you need is lots of shells and a weekend to complete this DIY Giant Seashell Seahorse.

DIY Giant Seashell Seahorse

Supplies: 

• Basket of various seashells (I purchased two from Hobby Lobby with lots leftover to do more projects)
• bag of small shells
• pearls (optional)
• picture frame (I used a 24″ x 36″frame from Michaels)
• burlap (optional)
• acrylic paint – white and a blue of your choice (I used Testors Craft White and FolkArt Aqua)
• paint brush
• bag of aqua or blue flat marbles or sea glass
• hot glue gun/glue sticks
• chalk or felt tip white ink pen

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Use seashells and flat glass beads to create a giant sea shell seahorse. #seashells #seahorse” quote=”DIY Giant Sea Shell Seahorse”]

Directions:

• If the shells are dirty, scrub with a brush or rinse under water. Let dry completely.
• If the frame backing is a nice heavy duty chip board or wood, you can paint directly on it and skip covering it with burlap. If not, wrap the frame backing with burlap or your chosen fabric and attach it using hot glue or tape.
• Paint a frame of blue inside of the frame or cover the entire backing or burlap with blue paint using vertical strokes. You will want to see the strokes and some of the backing showing through. Let this dry.
• Use a dry brush, and add a few white vertical strokes through the blue paint for visual interest. Let dry.

• Take chalk or a white ink pen and lightly draw an outline of a seahorse shape.
• Dry fit the larger seashells inside of the outline.
• When you like the seashell placement, begin to hot glue the shells in place.
• Fill in the spaces between the large shells with pearls, glass marbles, and small seashells.

Once everything is in place and the glue is dry, place the DIY Giant Seashell Seahorse on the mantel or hang on the wall.

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More beach crafts ~