DIY Seashell Vase

DIY Seashell Vase

You will need:

• One large glass vase or jar with lid off
• One cylinder vase smaller than the first one that fits inside
• Seashells (I bought one bag of landscaping seashells and some dollar store bags of white clam shells)
• Large iridescent clear glass beads
• Clear Glass Marbles
• Glass beads in sea colors
• If you want the crackled effect on your beads and marbles, you will need a cookie sheet, oven, large bowl of ice water or sink filled with ice water. If you want to crackle the large glass beads you will need a mini-muffin tin.

Clean your jars and remove any stickers. Place the cylinder vase inside of the glass jar and center it. You could use foam double stick tape if you wanted to hold it in place. I chose not to do that as it’s a little hard to remove afterwards.

If you would like to crackle your glass, preheat your oven from 475 to 500 degrees. I used 475 in our convection oven. Then put your glass gems on a cookie sheet with or without foil and the large glass marbles and smaller marbles in the mini muffin tin so they don’t roll around. Fill your sink with ice water (or use a bowl.)  Bake for 18 to 22 minutes. Carefully remove from the oven and slide into the ice water bath. I used tongs the first time I tried the large marbles without any casualties and did the dump in the sink approach the second time (which was easier but some marbles broke). I had some marbles break and a few glass beads turn a little brown, so take this into account when you are planning how many you need.

 

This is how big the glass gems are and what they look like without the crackled effect. If you want to keep it simple, you can leave them like this.

This is what the large glass marbles look like with the crackled effect. They look pretty inside the seashell vase.

If you’ve crackled your marbles and beads, dry them off. Then, start layering the beads, marbles and shells around the outside of the vase so that the cylinder in the middle stays empty while you fill in the space between the vases. When you are finished, put water and flower food inside the center vase and fill with flowers that do not cover the shells such as hydrangeas. I used a dozen hydrangeas in the image at the top to create fullness and to cover the double vase effect at the top.