Beautiful Upcycled Scallop Shell Trinket Dishes

I decided the best ways to upcycle these shells and make them pretty was to decoupage them. I wanted the grooves and ridges of the shell to still show though. I wanted it to look like the images had been printed onto the shells.

The best way to achieve this was to use tissue paper. I used masking tape to stick tissue paper onto normal printer paper. That way I could feed the tissue paper through my home printer and print onto it.

I choose some wonderful free fish images from here. I printed them onto the tissue paper using my home computer.

I cut the image out of the tissue paper. As the paper is so thin I could cut around a border as the white tissue paper doesn't show when glued to the shell.

I applied Mod Podge to the inside of the shell and then stuck the fish down. I then used a dry brush over the top to get rid of bubbles and to press the image firmly down to the shell.

To make these trinket dishes special I also decoupaged the outside of the shells. For this I printed some lovely patterns onto tissue paper the same way as I did with the fish. If you go to the blog link at the end there are lots of links to free patterns to use.

I covered the back of the shell with decoupage glue and stuck down the pattern.

I used a wet brush to remove an excess tissue paper.

Once the decoupage had dried I then applied a layer of Mod Podge over both the back and the front of the shells. This acts as a protective varnish when dried.

I love how the shell trinket dishes turned out. Using tissue paper the images actually look like they were printed onto the shells. Don't forget to visit the site for more photos and lots more free vintage images to choose from for your own shells.

I choose fish images for my shell dishes as I thought they were a good match. However, you could use any images you want even photos of a special seaside holiday.