Shell Grotto Craft

This grotto is the brainchild of our little sister, who thought it would be fun to create a grotto out of a milk carton, glue, and some rocks.  We had originally intended to use rocks, but since we had done some beachcombing recently, we substituted shells.

First,  we cut off the front of the milk carton to give it a grotto shape.  Then, since we wanted to start with a generally smooth surface, we cut the top off and cut two holes in the  sides where there were indentations in the plastic.  We used the flat parts of our leftover plastic to fill in these holes.  These were patched with tacky glue, but any white glue will work.
To start, it works best to glue a row of shells (or rocks) along one edge of the milk carton and let this row dry completely.  (We used a hair dryer to speed up the drying process).  This row, once dry, will work to keep the rest of the shells in place as you continue to glue.
We “painted” large sections of the carton with glue and continued to fit the shells together like a puzzle…
covering the inside and outside, one section at a time, and at times letting the sections dry before moving onto the next one.
The base of the grotto was then covered with sand- mixed with blue and white glitter.
The small spaces between the shells were filled in with tiny shells and miscellaneous beads we had on hand. The finished project!