The Healthy Sunflower

We love to camp! Every year we try to come up with a new area to explore. One of our camping stops was to Cumberland Island National Seashore. We enjoyed taking the ferry over and then hiking to our campsite. We explored the island and found horses, armadillos, and Dungeness Estate ruins, and collected seashells on the beach. On the ride back on the ferry I thought about what to do with all the shells we found and thought this was a nice way of displaying our found seashells.

Supplies

• Shells
• Starfish (I got mine from Hobby Lobby)
• Floral Foam Cone
• Floral Wooden Sticks
• Hot glue gun
• Hot glue stick
• Twine

Step 1

Organize the shells from biggest to smallest. You want the bigger shells on the bottom of the tree and as you go up the tree you get smaller and smaller. Note: After creating this, the one thing I wish I had done differently was gluing small shells around the bottom of the tree and then proceed with the big ones.

Step 2

I used the floral wooden sticks like a nail to hold up the shells, especially for the bigger shells. I also used the hot glue gun to keep it in place. Then continue upward on hot gluing the shells up the cone.

Step 3

For the Christmas tree topper, I purchased a fake starfish. I wrapped the twine around the floral wooden stick and then hot glued it to the starfish.

Step 4

I then put the star on top of the tree. Note: One of my shells broke on the ride home and I used to cover the top.

I hope you enjoy this craft and that this gives you another way to use shells.