Christmas Painted Shell Ornaments • Color Made Happy

Handmade Christmas ornaments are always my favorite ornaments to take out year after year to hang on the Christmas tree. I love crafting with shells, so this year I wanted to come up with some holiday themed painted Christmas shell ornaments. And shhh…don’t tell anyone but I typically buy my shells for crafting online or at the craft store. I put some great options in the supply list below.

Christmas Painted Shell Ornaments Supplies

(affiliate links provided for convenience)

Shells – I used shells from this set. Here’s another great option for shells, as well as these shells.
Paint pens – If you don’t have paint markers yet, I highly suggest getting a set! I use these extra fine point markers in both the regular colors and pastel colors all the time on rocks, wood and more. But the full set has all the colors and a few more.
Acrylic paint
Dimensional fabric paint
Puff balls
Pendant hanger
Baker’s twine

Christmas Painted Shell Ornaments Directions

Character Designs on Shell Ornaments

For these fun character ornaments I started with a white shell. If you don’t have a white shell you can always use white spray paint.
I first lightly sketched the designs with a pencil.
Using paint pens I colored in the designs. You could also use acrylic paint as an option but paint pens are much easier to control, especially for details like fine lines.
For a finishing touch I added mini puff balls to the top of the shell.

Lettering and Painting on Shell Ornaments
- Shells that have a smoother surface are perfect for hand lettering and adding fun holiday phrases and words using paint markers.
- If you want a colored background, acrylic paint is a great way to easily cover the surface of the shell.
- For perfectly round dots, I used these dotting tools to create different sized snowflakes on the snowman painted shell.

Dimensional Fabric Paint Shell Ornaments
- Another great material to use on shells are dimensional fabric paints.
- I love the raised surface created by these paints. They are a great craft material to use with children. The hardest paint is waiting for them to dry as they typically take several hours.

Adding an Ornament Backing

There’s a few different ways to add an ornament backing to your shells so that you can hang them on your tree. One simple way is to hot glue some sturdy twine in a loop to the back of the shell. Or you can hot glue a pendant backing to the shell and simply add some baker’s twine (shown below).

For some more painted shell design inspiration, check out these posts Puffy Paint Shells, Galaxy Shells, Painted Shell Design Ideas. I’d love to see what you come up with. Come share with me a picture of your painted shell ornaments on Instagram or Facebook! I love showing examples of my tutorials being made!