Blogger / 12 August, 2026 / Nanny Anita

Shell Painting

Every summer my nanny family goes on a beach holiday, and every year I want to do shell painting with them. Two years ago I didn’t go away with them and last year we had a great week away, but not a single beach we went to had shells! This year I was determined to find something! Thankfully we did, but silly me, I forgot the paintbrushes. Oh well, thank goodness for ear buds.

Make sure you follow my painting board on Pinterest for more ideas, and don’t forget to save the pin for later.

You will need:

• Shells
• Paint
• Paintbrushes*

* Or if you are like me you can use ear buds.

Finding the perfect shells to paint might take you a long time. You don’t want something too small, or it becomes very difficult for younger children. We found lots of beautiful shells, unfortunately they were all rather tiny and more like the type of shell a hermit crab would use than a bivalve. In the end we found some nice limpets.

I bought along a small set of paints; like the ones you get on a paint by numbers kit. They were perfect for this.

During our down time one afternoon I set us up and YC and I got to painting our shells.

I will admit, our two large shells came from a fishmonger, but we had fun painting them.

We turned our limpets into a family of crabs. We tried using pen to draw on the faces, but over night the pen seemed to come off. I would either recommend using paint to do this or maybe a sharpie.

Shell painting is a sweet craft to do, and great for either a rainy afternoon, or if you simply want to keep your little ones out of the midday sun.

Pin for later: