Spray Painted Vacation Sea Shells

As Memorial Day officially kicks off summer, I thought it would be a great time to introduce you to a simple and fun project that will make you want to find as many sea shells on your beach vacations as possible! You see, I have always LOVED looking for sea shells. As a child, I could spend all day long searching and searching…trying to find the most special ones to take home. I was occupied for hours at the beach. Now… when I got home, I never really did anything with them, but it sure was a thrill to find them! 🙂

Now that I have children of my own, their very favorite thing {especially my 4 year old daughter} to do on the beach is search for shells! On our most recent vacation a couple of weeks ago, they both found more shells than you can shake a stick at. We went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and those East Coast beaches are full of gorgeous shells! While we were putting them into their cute little pink and blue “shell bags”, I was thinking to myself, “What in the world am I going to do with all of these shells??” Well, inspiration struck!

{And this is only a small portion of their shells….}

Since I am a decor-aholic, it made perfect sense to have them fit into their bedroom decor style…so I decided to PAINT THEM!

I did Eden’s first because she was the most excited about it. I let her help me with the spray paint, and we painted pink, yellow, purple, white and turquoise! You have never seen a happier little girl. She thought it was the grandest thing ever. I wish I had taken a picture of her helping…but here is some of the shells in the process.

I always have colorful grass in my back yard from all of my little spray painting activities 🙂

I had several of the colors on hand, but I bought a couple more at Lowe’s that I didn’t have. Spray paint is my best friend. I have accumulated quite the stash. I have been so amazed at all I can paint with it…and it is SO dang easy to use!

Amazon has TONS of spray paint options if you prefer to shop more conveniently from the comfort of your home…not to mention having LOTS more options that at the actual store! Don’t you just love internet shopping?? I DO. With 2 toddlers, it is the only way to go!

Here are a few pretty colors I found online that they didn’t have locally for me! The internet is the greatest invention ever!




So, after a good coat on each side, these bad boys were done. It took just a very few minutes for them to dry.

I gathered them all up and put them in a precious little apothecary jar that I found at Hobby Lobby a while back. It had been on my dining room table, but since I am revamping it, I thought it would be perfect for the painted shells…and I was SO RIGHT. They turned out gorgeous!

I totally love this project! How EASY and FUN can you get?? And aren’t these colors so cute together??

And here they are in her precious little room that will never be complete enough to show you!

She was thrilled with this. She felt so proud that SHE found these shells on the beach and that now they are displayed in her room! This really is just a fun way to display those vacation shells that can so easily end up being a nuisance once we get home with them!

AND…as though this isn’t awesome enough—it can be changed up as the years go by and your decor colors change! Just spray paint them a different color! Boom!

AND…I was just thinking today that I wish I had gotten even more because it sure would be gorgeous to fill a couple of large apothecary jars with ones that were painted completely white and display them on a summer mantle or tablescape! Y’all…the possibilities are endless!

What do you think of this project?? Does it inspire you to go pick as many shells as possible?

I ended up seeing these apothecary jars on Amazon for $29.99, and I thought they were adorable- and they come as a set of 3. They would be gorgeous for shells {or really anything for that matter!}

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Last Updated on June 2, 2016