Beachy Kids Crafts

I just got home from a beach vacation with my family. My sister graduated from law school (hooray!!!) and we celebrated by spending a week on the beach and being bums. Fitting, eh? :) My two boys just adore the beach, taking after their mama on that one. Even the 9month old couldn't get enough of the sand! My 3yr. old has always loved playing in the surf and digging "tunnels" in the sand. But one of his favorite beach activities is shell hunting. He loves to find those "beautiful" treasures and of course cannot part with any of those half broken shells that he deems so valuable. And not wanting in any way to burst his bubble and actually finding them beautiful myself, we always seem to come home from the beach with dozens and dozens of shells and no clue what to do with all of them.
Well, if you find yourself in that same predicament, here are some ideas that I found for fun crafts you can make with all those beach treasures.

A Shell Wreath- you cover a cardboard ring with glue and sprinkle with sand. Once it is dry, you hot glue the shells on to make a beautiful beach wreath suitable for display. Sounds easy enough.

Bug Shell Magnets- Glue the shells together and add googly eyes and some magnet tape... Voila! This looks super cute but not much for the toddler to help with. Hmmm... moving on....

Or you could just let your kids paint the bigger shells and put a piece of magnet tape on the back... instant magnet and reminder of the fun.

I love these sea shell boats. And they look fairly easy. You attach a fabric scrap to a twig and then secure the twig in the shell with modeling clay. I think my 3yr. old will love this one.

Sea Shell Angels anyone?

Or if you have a lot of less-than-perfect shells (like we do), this shadow box craft may be the thing for you.

I think we'll be trying the wreath and the shell painting for starters. If I get really ambitious, we will try the bugs and the boat. They are so cute! Do you have any ideas for me? I would love to hear.
And if you try any of these ideas with your shell collection, I would love to hear about that too.