Shell pictures

We've had a big bag of shells knocking about the house since our beach trips to the Gower a few weeks ago. Most of them were gathered at Rhossili, and they're quite large things like razors, marine snail shells, whelks, mussels and cockles (some still with wizened, whiffy occupants..)
Too big basically to make more ladies with prams like last time.
So I've put some around plants in a flowerbed/rockery, but kept smaller, pretty shells like this to make a picture for Nanny's Birthday. It's a tellin shell, and quite a lot of the ones we found were still joined together.

So first off, my 6 year old painted a thin piece of card blue, leaving a few cms at the bottom.  You could cut out part of cereal packet and use that instead, if you don't have any plain card.

While it was drying we put some broken shells in a plastic bag and bashed them. Very popular this bit! But don't smash them to smithereens - looks better I think if there's a mix of different sizes.

When the blue is dry, we added some fluffy white clouds using an old sponge, and then covered the bit left at the bottom with a good layer of craft glue before sprinkling over all the shiny shell pieces.

Shake off any loose stuff.
Then glue on the butterflies.

Just match up some shells if the ones you've got aren't in pairs, or experiment with cockles and mussels. Perfect for flower pictures too, and all kinds of other things really. Once you get going the world's your oyster (shell).

Linking up with Red Ted Art's Kids Get Crafty