Mirror Mirror on the wall...

Some time ago I was painting something and before I cleaned up I decided to see what watered down paint looked like on shells and I loved it. It worked best on shells that had some texture, as the watered down paint would get stuck in crevices and such. Sometimes pooling at the bottom edge, making an ombré effect was cool too.

I'd been wanting to dress up our plain bathroom mirror and thought this might be the right project, so I picked colors and shells accordingly, and within two afternoons of painting, I had enough to get started. Now if I can just find the glue gun...

It may not have been the best tool for the job, as I did lose some shells (when the glue cooled before the shell really took hold) but picking glue here is difficult, almost nothing is familiar.

Found white glue in town at Joffre's, but that's not good for a lot of things. The clear silicone glue works similar to the glue gun, leaving strings everywhere, but takes a VERY long time to hold, so it would not have been the glue for a vertical project. (I'd still be holding shells to the wall) So glue gun it was, it worked and I'm happy with it.

I ended up paint washing coral pieces, starfish, and sand dollars along with the shells. I have extra ones painted already that I'll put to use in another art piece for a blank chunk of wall in the same bathroom. 

Since I liked the painted coral so much, I decided to try something I'd been thinking about...why couldn't I glue pieces of coral together to make a large piece for display? In the States, you see large pieces of coral as decoration and they are usually so expensive, well I had tons of jiblets, I just had to try...

Exciting, but not quite...

That's much better! The possibilities are endless, what other colors could I use, and after I find the right glue, how large could I make them?! What else can I do? With such an inventory free from the beach, and a little paint, glue and time... So, stay tuned...the adventure continues!