The ocean offers us many natural treasures. Seashells are the most beautiful from them. I spent my last weekends on the New York shore, walking  barefoot along the beach, making pictures and collecting seashells without any idea how to use them after. It is my favorite relaxing spring time. Now I like to share with you one of my ideas. It is the simple instructions and suggestions for gift, nautical decoration for your  home or time with your kids with a regular not exotic shells.

Deep shells like razor clams, oysters, blue mussel shells are the great natural and texture materials for your project.
Materials: Seashells ( 4 oyster shells or two matching or symmetrical pairs, 1 half from razor clam shell and two half,broken, long pieces from blue mussel shells.)
Any shape and size picture frame with back board, in my case I used 5”x 7” frame;
acrylic paint - Light Green and Orange color ;
paint brush;
Multipurpose Elmer’s glue;
Black Marker;
Paper towel

Just follow 5 simple steps:
1) Clean the shells in solution of bleach with water and dry them after.
2) Try to put all your shells for project on the frame and arrange them as a butterfly. If you like the result you can begin to paint. Your shells are originally dull and colorless except blue mussel shells. Create desirable tones that match to your shells color or contrast them.
3) I chose Orange color, acrylic paint for butterfly wings and body. You can choose any desirable tones that in good contrast with your backboard and frame. Let it dry for 20 minutes.

4) Color your frame backboard in green color. Leave your frame to dry for 30 minutes.

5) With a Black color Marker you can make any design on your butterfly’s wings.
6) Your last step is to glue all parts from your project. Try to be careful with an extra glue amount. Clean your working place with a paper towel. The first it will be better to glue the body, then can be the wings and last you can add antennas.
If you prefer to work with the natural colored seashells, all expenses for project can be higher but you can finish in two steps.