Shell Craft a Seashell Arts and Crafts Decorative Magnet

Here is a fairly easy to craft miniature seashell arts and craft that you can proudly display in your home. Use some of your vacation seashells to shellcraft this seashell project into a decorative "butterfly" magnet. Make a few of these decorative magnet crafts for your friends and family. They make great gifts. So give it a try and see how well you can do.

Things You’ll Need:

• Business card size magnet
• seashells
• rhinestones
• sand, beach sand preferred
• glue, white
• hobby paint brush
• polyurethane clear high gloss

Take a look at the magnet you are going to use. The one for this project is approximately 2 x 3 1/2 inches. If you don't have any spare free magnets, you can usually find them at office supply stores. Those will probably have a paper backing over a glued surface (for placing business cards). Remove the paper backing and use the glued surface for the design.

You will need 6 seashells and a couple of rhinestones. At least 2 of the seashells should be arks or carditas (look them up on the internet or visit Shellcraft Guides Seashells. These will form the upper part of the wings of the butterfly pattern.

Go through your seashell collection and look for seashells that will give you a butterfly pattern or a close copy of it. Pick out a couple of rhinestones to add the false eyes to your butterfly wings. They will also add color.

Apply glue to the magnet. Spread it around with the paint brush until the whole surface of the magnet is covered.

Place the seashells first, starting with the middle ones and then the outer ones. Once you have them where you want them, add the rhinestones.

Sprinkle sand over the whole project. You want to cover all the glue that is still showing.

Now comes the hard part: let the shellcraft sit until the glue is completely dried.

Once dry, pour off the excess sand.

To protect the shellcraft design, paint the project with the polyurethane. You can paint the seashells and the sand but not the rhinestones. Let dry.

The final step is to enjoy your small seashell treasure. Put it up on your refrigerator as decoration. They can also be used on file cabinets or anything else that will hold a magnet.