Tonight is our last night of vacation, after having 10 days off work.  It is bittersweet.  Vacation was wonderful.  We had time at the beach, and we also had time at home.  I got a major de-cluttering and organizing bug at home, and it has had good results.  In my organizing process, I was trying to clean up my craft room closet and it was packed. It spurred me to finally use the collection of seashells that I had been saving.  For probably two years now, I planned to make a seashell wreath, and today was the day that I finally accomplished it.

I had a whole drawer full of shells in my craft closet, plus a bucket of shells in the garage.

I definitely did not need that many for my shell wreath, but it was good to have variety.  I used a 12″ straw form wreath, a hot glue gun, and shells.

I didn’t even unwrap the wreath, I just heated up my glue gun and started attaching some of the larger shells.

I just attached with a variety of the shells, trying to cover as best I could. I did not attach to the back of the wreath, so I tried to cover the sides as much as possible without causing it to hang over the back edge.  This is how the wreath looked after my first level of coverage.

It was not difficult placing the first layer, you just have to work pretty quickly with the hot glue.  A word of caution, it is challenging to get the glue on the edges of the shells without burning your fingers.  I had it happen a few times.  But, the worst was when I got a few drips of glue on my legs…ouch!  So, as challenging as it was putting the glue on the larger shells, it became a bit more challenging with the next layer of tinier shells.  I just worked to put smaller shells in the gaps and over top of the larger shells.  The last two shells I placed were two tiny conch shells.  I had considered a star fish too, but I liked the simple look at this point and decided to call it done.

I placed the wreath in our master bathroom, since it has the sand and shell décor.  I just  hung the wreath in place of a picture that was there.

Overall, I’m happy with the results.  And, glad that I finally used the shells.  I definitely had tons leftover that I will be sharing with others.  I originally thought of making a seashell mirror, but I had enough fun with the hot glue gun for a while! 🙂

Do you collect seashells?  If you do, what do you do with them all?