Are you a seashell collector like me? Do you or your children spend more time looking for seashells on the beach than splashing in the waves? I am notorious for keeping my family waiting for 5 more minutes so I can do some therapeutic beach combing.

What to do with all these seashells? Well there’s lots that you can do, but one of my favourite projects is to make another cute and creative seashell mobile. Let me show you how.

DIY Seashell Mobile

Here’s what you might need:

seashells, wooden beads, embroidery floss, scissors, cotton thread/yarn, embroidery hoop

You can use anything you’ve got handy really. I tend to work with whatever I can find around the house, so I encourage you to be creative and improvise!

The first thing I did was wrap the inside of my embroidery hoop with the white cotton thread as you can see on the image below.

I wanted to cover up the wood and make it white. You might choose to use it as it is, the wood might look really pretty now I come to think of it.

As you are wrapping yarn around the inside of an embroidery hoop (or whatever you’re using), make sure to keep it nice and tight. Tie a secure knot or two at the end.

I made three strings with seashells and beads. Depending on the size of your hoop, you might want to make more (I think three is a minimum).

You can decide for yourself how long you’d like your strings to be. Whatever looks best given the size of your hoop and where you think it will hang.

When threading seashells, it would seem obvious that you can only thread broken shells or shells that naturally have holes. You need your thread to go in and come out again somewhere.

If you decide to drill your own holes, please be aware that seashell dust is dangerous and you should avoid breathing it in.

I like using wooden beads because it has such a beachy feel to it. If you have some little pieces of driftwood, you could tie them in too.

My daughter insisted on using some shiny pearls. She sad they reminded her of mermaids. Of course. I must admit that they do look very pretty as they catch the light from time to time!

To keep the seashells in place, tie a little knot or two in strategic places.

Once you have all your strings made, you can attach them to the hoop with a few knots.

To hang the hoop, I attached another three pieces of yarn to the hoop. I threaded a few wooden beads in there, then carefully figured out where to tie those three together so the seashell mobile would be balanced. I added a last wooden bead just for prettiness’ sake.

And this is how our seashell mobile looked like when finished. Very cute, pretty and peaceful. Perfectly suited to hang in front of the window in a mermaid wannabe’s bedroom.

My daughter can’t stop touching it. And even though it’s winter here in New Zealand, we live near the coast and to have a seashell mobile in the house seems to bring a little bit of nature inside, not only in our homes but also in our hearts.

Seashell Mobile Project: Make it Together!

Making a seashell mobile is a great family project. You can go to the beach in the morning, collect your seashells and spend a lazy afternoon creating with milk and cookies on the side!

For more creative project inspiration, have a look here. My favourites are the ocean world we created, the fabric flower tutorials and the travel tins we made. Hours of quality time creating with the kids or some well deserved creative you-time!

Enjoy!

Ann*

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