I think I’ve made it abundantly clear that when it comes to crafts, I’m the opposite of Martha Stewart. Put quite frankly, I pretty much stink at making stuff. During a trip to the shore last weekend, however,Jacob gathered up like a zillion clam shells (the real ones, not the deadly plastic cases that toys come in), and I really wanted to think of something fun to do with them. I came up with the brilliant, albeit totally unoriginal, idea to paint them! Of course, as with all my brilliant craft ideas, I had visions of myself painting elaborate ocean scenes on the shells. Then I remembered that I can barely draw (or paint) stick figures, and decided that something on the abstract side may be more realistic. Here are my step-by-step instructions, although really, I just basically painted shells, so you could totally skip the instructions and just look at the pictures.

1.  Get some shells. Obviously, you can’t paint shells if you don’t have the actual shells! Hey, I was once told to never leave out the obvious in “how-to’s.” Ours were ginormous clam shells, but you can use any shell with a decent surface area.

2. Clean them up. The beach is full of sand, and your shells most likely will be too. Rinse them off and let them dry, then lay them out on a piece of plastic or newspaper before painting.

Super Easy Seashell Craft For the Not-So-Crafty

Step 3: Find yourself a cute kid. Tell him to smile. Post his goofy expression on your blog. Notice that you forgot to clean off the table before taking pictures, and ask your readers to ignore the Super Soaker and other mess in the background. Oh, this would also be a good time to lay out all your paint supplies.

Super Easy Seashell Craft For the Not-So-Crafty

Step 4: Paint the Shells. Aside from actually gathering the shells, this is the most important step in the whole “paint some seashells” project. Otherwise, it would just be “get some shells and do nothing else.” Again, ignore the messy table.

Super Easy Seashell Craft For the Not-So-Crafty

Step 5. Take pictures of your pretty shells so everyone can see how awesome you are at really simple crafts. Mine is the first one. I painted it blue and used glitter glue to make the dots. Jake did the two in the second picture. The one on the bottom right is supposed to be the ocean. He made it especially for me. Isn’t he a great kid?

Super Easy Seashell Craft For the Not-So-Crafty

Super Easy Seashell Craft For the Not-So-Crafty