Do you ever wonder what you should do with all the shells you collect at the beach? If you’ve already tried making a beach ornament and still have shells your wondering what you should do with then try this fun seashell turtle craft.

When we lived in Florida last year we always had tons of shells from our trips to the beach so we decided to use a few of the shells to make turtles as part of our sea turtle unit.
Since we were going to the beach at least once a week we figured we should learn a little bit about the animals that are on the beach and in the ocean.
We learned about sharks and did some fun shark activities and the next animal we thought would be fun to learn about was turtles.
Whether you live by the beach or you just have kids that love learning about animals this turtle craft is sure to be a hit.
Seashell Turtle Craft
These seashell turtles are fun and easy to make and you only need a few basic craft supplies.
Supplies
- Seashells (if you don’t have any from the beach you can get some here)
- Glue
- Googly Eyes
- Green Paint
- Green Pipe cleaners (I usually get a mixed color package so I have them for several different crafts)
- Optional: a home for your turtles (we used an empty croissant box from Costco)
Making Your Seashell Turtles
Wash the Seashells
The first step to making these seashell turtles is washing your shells. You want to make sure to get all the sand off the shells before you paint them.
Once your done washing the shells let them dry completely before starting to paint.

Paint Your Shells
Now it’s time to start painting your shells. We kept it simple and just used green paint, but you could do some brown details on the turtle if you want since sea turtles are often brown/green.
When we do painting projects at our house the kids both have shirts that are “paint shirts” that we keep with the craft supplies. They are large t-shirts that fit over their clothes, keeping everything from getting painted.

We also have a paint table cloth that we use to cover the table and catch all the paint from our projects.
Once your shells are painted let them dry completely before starting to put together your turtles.
Add the Eyes
After the shells are completely dry it’s time to get down to turning them into sea turtles.
The first thing we did was glue on some googly eyes. Is it just me or do googly eyes make everything so much cuter?!?

We used varying sizes of eyes on our turtles the kids got to pick so some of our turtles even have mismatched sizes. I personally love how the bigger size eyes look.
We used a glue stick to attach our eyes with a really thick layer of glue. This was the easiest option with young kids. You could also use school glue or even hot glue depending on the ages of those making this turtle craft.
Now that you’ve added the eyes to your shells you can probably start to see what your turtle is going to look like.
Time for the Legs/ Flippers
For the legs we used green pipe cleaners. Because our shells were all different sizes the length of the pipe cleaners were all different.
To figure out how long of a pipe cleaner you’ll need lay the shell on the pipe cleaner and then adjust it so the legs are about the length you want them to be and then give yourself an extra half inch or so to work with.
After cutting the pipe cleaners I folded them in half and did a little twist and then folded the legs out.

We glued that little twist of the pipe cleaner to the inside of the shell. But however you find best to attach the legs to the shell will work great.
Make sure your turtle gets two sets of legs since they need 4 to swim.
I think the pipe cleaners work great for the legs since they look a lot like the flippers that sea turtles have.

The Finished Turtle Craft
Once the legs are attached your turtle craft is done!

My kids put all of their finished turtles inside a clear plastic container as a home for their turtles.
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