These seashell snowman ornaments are SO CUTE and they’re really easy to make! Turn your beach treasures into festive DIY Christmas tree ornaments in just a few minutes.
Seashell snowmen are perfect for a beach themed Christmas tree or for Christmas in July, and they’re also a super fun homemade gift idea. It’s a great way to turn your holiday seashell collection into an adorable keepsake!
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How to Make Seashell Snowman Ornaments
Materials:
- 3 Scallop seashells (3 different sizes)
- Acrylic paint (white)
- Black Sharpie marker
- Orange Sharpie marker
- 3 Rhinestone stickers
- Twine
Equipment:
Check Out The Video Tutorial:
Instructions:
Step 1: Find what you need
- Gather your supplies and materials.
Step 2: Paint the seashells (optional)
- Paint the seashells with white paint. You may need several coats of paint, depending on the paint you use.If your shells are already white, you can skip this step.Allow the seashells to dry.
Step 3: Connect the shells
- The largest seashell will be the bottom of the snowman. Place it on your work surface with the flat edge at the top. Add a little bit of hot glue to the back of the medium sized seashell along 3/4 inch of the curved edge.
- Press the medium shell onto the large shell about 1/3 down from the top. Keep the flat edge of the medium shell raised off the table by about 1/4 inch. You don't want the second shell to lie completely flat on the table.
- Flip the shells over and add more hot glue behind the medium shell to hold them in place.
- Add the smallest seashell the same way - again making sure to raise the last seashell so it isn't lying flat on the table.
Step 4: Add the hat, face, and buttons
- Draw a top hat for the snowman on the third shell with a black Sharpie marker.
- Draw eyes and a mouth for the snowman using the black Sharpie. Use the orange Sharpie to draw a carrot nose.
- Press three small sticker rhinestone stickers onto the middle shell as buttons.
Step 5: Add a twine ornament hanger
- Cut a 6 inch piece of twine and tie it into a loop.
- Add hot glue on the back of the top seashell.
- Press the knotted part of the twine loop into the glue.
- Your seashell snowman ornament is complete!
Where can I get seashells?
You can use seashells that you’ve gathered at the beach to make your snowman ornaments extra special! Make sure to wash and dry your shells before painting them.
If you haven’t been to the beach lately, you can also buy seashells! Try looking at the dollar store first, but you can also find seashells at Michaels or another craft store. Amazon sells a lot of different types of shells as well.
What’s the best paint to use on seashells?
We used inexpensive acrylic paint to paint our seashells, and it definitely worked — but we had to do 3 coats on the top of the shells and 2 coats on the bottom. A multi-surface acrylic paint would work the best to paint the shells, allowing better coverage with fewer coats.
What’s the best glue for connecting the seashells?
The hot glue gun worked really well to make these seashell snowman ornaments! The nice thing about hot glue is that it dries very quickly.
But if you don’t want to work with hot glue there are a lot of other glue options that work well on seashells. You can use E-6000 adhesive, gorilla glue, or tacky glue on seashells.
How else can I decorate these seashell snowman ornaments?
Try using puffy fabric paint instead of Sharpie for the facial features, and even in place of the buttons. If you don’t have rhinestones you can draw on the buttons with Sharpie or glue on sequins.
For another fun and festive touch, cut a scarf out of felt and glue it above the buttons!
I love homemade ornaments that are inexpensive, quick to make, AND look super adorable! Customize your seashell snowman by choosing the colour of their rhinestone buttons, and don’t forget to write the year on the back of them!
Here’s even more snowman ornament ideas:
Our book Low-Mess Crafts for Kids is loaded with 72 fun and simple craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-mess, so the clean up is simple!
Where to buy:
You can purchase Low-Mess Crafts for Kids from Amazon, or wherever books are sold:
Amazon |  Barnes and Noble |  Books- A- Million |  Indiebound |  Indigo |  Amazon Canada
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