Stamping on Shells

So, I have been meaning to and have also been asked to post my shell that we did during the first class I taught about a month ago. The shells we used were Scallop shells, that Anne (Tabitha's Treasures owner) picked up from somewhere local and she washed them (bleached them too I think) and let them dry outside. I was given a few of these shells a few weeks before the class to play around with the shells to see if they could in fact be stamped on or painted on, the first couple of shells didn't turn out that great.  With some practice (I was glad I had a pile of these shells to play with in case one broke or didn't turn out), I managed to do 3 shells that I was happy with to teach the class how to do.
If you are planning on trying this project out, I would recommend that you have a few extra shells and that you use see through acrylic stamps or stamps that you can rock easily over the shell to get a clean crisp image from.
I stamp set I used is from There She Goes (can't remember what it is called right now, sorry!), and it was really easy to use and was glad that it was see through so one could re-align up the stamp again in case only part of the image showed up. Once we all stamped our images onto the shells, we painted the images in using SU Watercolor crayons or Tombow markers with a watercolor brush and with either one of these methods you have to make sure you don't have too much water on your brush or things will run/bleed. This is even more the case with having the shell as your medium, the grooves in the shell provided great little ramps for your paint to run down! Once we all colored in the images, let them dry, we sprayed them with a protective coating so they wouldn't run or bleed if they got wet again... and some of us even sprayed on some shimmer to make it sparkle a bit.

Thanks for stopping by,
Catherine