Create an easy beach-inspired art piece using seashells, paint, and a canvas. This beginner-friendly craft is inexpensive, customizable, and perfect for coastal decor, summer crafting, or a relaxing girls’ craft night.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Supplies:
– a canvas (we used an 8×10 from the Dollar Tree)
– a bag of coastal shells (also from the Dollar Tree)
– acrylic paint in coordinating colors
– liquid gold (Janelle’s fave!) or metallic rub on wax
– hot glue gun and glue sticks
Tools:
– paintbrushes
– paint palette (or paper plate)
– wet wipes (or damp paper towel)
– heat tool/gun (or hair dryer) *optional
– teflon mat or protective work surface
Optional Add-ons:
– sand for texture
– diamond dots or rhinestones
– driftwood pieces
– lettering or vinyl words
– glitter accents
– paint for canvas (black, white, whatever makes you happy)

Gather all your supplies and let’s get crafting! First, plug in that glue gun. *TIP: If you are using an inexpensive canvas, you can lightly mist the back with water and dry it with the heat gun to tighten the surface.

Now you’ll spend some time choosing which coastal shells you want and laying them out on the canvas to get them in the order that makes you happy. This art is for you, so take your time choosing. We did four rows, but varied the number of shells that were in each row since we were aiming for shells that were roughly the same size.

Some people may say that the larger shells look better on the bottom row, but I say … this is DIY, Do It to make Yourself happy!

PAINTING!

This will take the majority of your time on this project. You have a few options for getting color onto your shells. We used regular acrylic paint for our blue shells and we used chalk paint pens for our pink shells. *Insider note for the beginner: the chalk paint does rub off when it dries, so that is a small issue, but it goes on very nicely so … it’s up to you!

Pick a different pattern to put on each row of shells. The pattern is totally up to you and if you try something and hate it, what do we do? Just paint over it and try again! After you are satisfied with all your shells and their patterns, paint the edges with the liquid gold.

ARRANGING!

Make sure your glue gun is on. While it is heating up, rearrange your painted coastal shells back onto the canvas. This will help keep you on track with where you want each shell to go while you are gluing them on.

Remember to just use a little glue on the inside of the shell since you do not want the glue to squish out the sides and make a mess on your canvas.

*TIP: You can use Aleene’s Tacky glue if kids are involved or you do not have a glue gun.

Now, you can call it good at this point. Our first one (in blue) was just that simple. But … if you want to take it to the next level, you can paint your canvas before starting

Want to see how this came together for us on our first attempt? Check out the replay of our livestream:

Visit our YouTube Channel for More! https://www.youtube.com/@ChristyAndJanelle

Doesn’t everyone need a jar to keep their mummys in? No? Just me? I thought everyone had a mummy jar. Well, it’s high time you get on board and make one for yourself. This is quite a fun project and will bring smiles all around, which is always a good thing.

Here’s what you need:

1. Jar with lid
2. Découpage glue – look here if you want to make your own
3. Gauze (like you would use as a bandage)
4. Wax paint
5. Chalk paint (or regular acrylic paint)
6. Sponge brush
7. Googly eyes
8. Old doorknob (proportionate to the lid of the jar) or bolts
9. E6000 glue
10. Glue gun and glue stick
11. Magnetized tape
12. Battery powered tea light

First order of business is to cover the lid and the jar with the découpage glue using the sponge brush. Most importantly , you don’t want the glue to dry before the next step, so you will want to work somewhat quickly.

Now, get to wrapping that jar with gauze. This may take more than one layer due to how thin the gauze is and how much you want to see through it. It’s all about your personal preference. Let your creativity take over!

If you feel it is necessary, go ahead and brush on another layer of your découpage glue. This will really secure the gauze and ease your mind. After that dries, start adding some brown wax paint (or whatever colored paint your heart desires) to give your mummy jar a disheveled/ancient appearance.

Next step is to prepare the lid. Paint the lid your color of choice. Christy used black to go with her Frankenstein inspired jar. I used white to go with my traditional mummy look, and I added a couple of scuffs with the wax paint. After the lid is dry, use the E6000 glue to adhere your doorknob to the top of the lid, if you are adding that. Or, add your bolts to the sides, if you are going with that route. (Remember, you will need to let it cure for the appropriate amount of time … I think it is 24 hours.)

Side note: please squeeze your tubes from the bottom. We can’t have you out there squeezing tubes from random spots in the middle! That’s just too chaotic and some of us don’t know how to handle that.

After all that, you can put whatever you like in your little mummy jar and enjoy a funny addition to your Halloween decor. We opted to use a little battery-powered tea light, but you can fill that jar with anything. We think candy is an excellent choice!

A couple of years ago I thought it was time for Christy to teach me how to make a wreath. Even though Christmas is my favorite holiday, I wanted to make a fall wreath. I’m pretty sure I was thinking ‘Fall feels less intimidating than Christmas’ which definitely influenced my decision. We had just started crafting together so I don’t have any photos of the supplies before I put them together, so you will have to use your imagination.

This is how it started so you know we had a good time! I’m pretty sure the base was just a simple round wire wreath from the Dollar Tree. After wrapping the wire with burlap, I got to work getting the greenery attached. Don’t ask me how I attached it, I’ve already forgotten! Christy had a stash of greenery and I picked out some with this great oak leaf pattern.

Even though this was going to be a fall wreath, I decided not to use traditional orange, yellow, and brown colors. I opted for a rust, peach, and eggplant palette instead. I’m still in love with these colors, but I definitely think this wreath is pretty basic and needs quite a bit more.

However, I did add some pumpkins for a definite seasonal look. Can’t have a fall wreath without something fall! This felt very accessorized to me, but Christy kept encouraging me to add more. I decided to put some lights in it for some uniqueness and that was about as far as my creativity could take me.

I bet it’s time to make another fall wreath and see how far I’ve come in my crafting journey. Since making this wreath, I have made a wreath for the 4th of July and for Valentine’s Day. Is it time to make a Christmas wreath?

Do you love yarn? Here is a simple, fun way to use yarn … let’s make pom poms! I know there are ways to make these without any gadgets, but I have a fun little tool I like to use. This is the set I got at Michaels, but I’m sure you can find them anywhere and maybe less expensive, too. *check Amazon, wink wink*

Enjoy this little video tutorial …

Takes no time at all!

Pom poms are great for all sorts of fun and crafts. We’ve used them for wreaths, crocheted projects, and various crafts. However, you might just want to make them for the grandkids to play around with, because of course we have done this!

Making these just for fun was a great way to get familiar with the Clover tool.

I love how these red, white, blue, and multi-colored pom poms really made this 4th of July wreath from a couple of years ago pop. You can read about how we made this and give it a whirl yourself.

Now, remember I said something about making pom poms without a fancy tool? I found this excellent post by Chel over at Pastel Craft Cafe that will show you how with just basic things around your house. There is no need for a gadget, unless you are easily frustrated like me and need extra help.

Overall, pom poms are a fun, easy way to use up leftover yarn so get on out there and make some!

We love a yarn project around here, so let’s make a pom pom wreath!

This project can be as simple or as elaborate as you wish. We added some things we already had in the craft room, so go ahead and be creative with what you already have around.

First of all we made some pom poms out of red and blue yarn, and then we found some yarn that had red and blue bits in it that was perfect so we made more pom poms out of that. You can see how we used a handy little gadget to make those here.

We started the wreath with some cardboard cut into a donut shape, the pom poms we made, and some paint. Plus some little wooden stars we had in our “wood shapes” bin.

After you paint the cardboard you can choose to leave the center open, but we decided to add some sheet music by gluing it to the cardboard wreath. And then we used hot glue to attach the pom poms. If you have varying sizes of pom poms, be sure to spread them out so it looks balanced. But, also, don’t be stingy. You can really get it looking full by layering them a bit. Play around with it and have fun!

Now you get to add little embellishments … we didn’t end up using the little stars, but we painted the “America” sign we had and added it along with some starry ribbon to make it a little more festive.

It would be so easy to make this pom pom wreath fit any occasion just by changing the yarn color and switching out the embelishments. Happy wreath making!

Christy loves the shabby chic look, and she loves to up-cycle/recycle as opposed to just purchasing something already finished. So … let’s turn this plain old piece of barn wood into a shabby chic piece of decor.

We (and by “we”, I mean Christy) found some nice pieces of wood at a barn sale, and Christy snagged them for projects she has had in mind for a while. They were quite rough so we sanded them down until they were nice and smooth which will help the paint to adhere nicely. Don’t forget to wipe the dust off with a baby wipe.

Once that was done we put on a layer of pink chalk paint and let it dry. Well, let’s be honest, we didn’t want to wait so we used the heat gun. We’re impatient like that sometimes!

The next step is crucial for getting the shabby chic look. We “painted” some vaseline along the edges and in random spots on the pink board. This seems crazy, but it made sense in the end.

Now, vaseline does not dry, so we just moved on to the next step … painting a layer of white over the entire board. We just slathered it on over everything, and used the heat gun again to get the white layer dry.

Here’s the trick to getting the shabby chic look … after all that, we took a paper towel and wiped the whole thing down. The paint that was on top of the vaseline came right up, showing the pink layer underneath. Shabby chic!

This video is from a Facebook Live so it is quite long. By all means … please feel free to fast forward the “boring” parts. Although, the “boring” parts are also some of the fun parts!

Now you know how to make things shabby chic … want to see what we ended up doing with this board?

Check out this video to see what we did with this board after we got it all shabby chic’d. We had quite a good time finishing up this project and it will look great in Christy’s laundry room.

Please enjoy blankets galore in this post. I’ll try to post the pattern links with each photo, but some of them may be too far in the past to remember which pattern I used.

I told you this post would have blankets galore … and there’s even more!

I wish I had a photo of the whole completed project, but alas … I gave it away before snapping a pic. I learned the moss stitch and discovered I love patterns by Daisy Farm Crafts. I figured out my own pattern of stripes, which may not seem like a big deal, but … MATH!

This was a fun project! I had leftover yarn from various other projects that went together well. And, I had so much fun doing the moss stitch that I did it again. My oldest granddaughter loves her blanket.

Isn’t my mom the cutest?!?!? Even though this pattern is a baby blanket, I made it big enough for her.

This fabric treatment smells so good! And this was my first time blocking a project. I have yet to see how the blanket does getting washed and dried, so we’ll have to check that out soon.

Not too bad for a beginner, if I do say so myself! I don’t know when one becomes an experienced beginner, but that is not really important to me. I have so much left to learn. And, so many unfinished projects that I could make another long post like this, lol! Stay tuned …