Thursday, March 6, 2025

Handcraft a sailor's valentine for your dollhouse...

       This craft is very old and seldom seen in antique shops today. Collections of sea shells were mounted inside shallow display boxes or frames with glue. Often the shallow frames were constructed in hexagon or octagon shapes. Sometimes two identical frames were hinged together so that a top and bottom could be made to close into a box with a lock.

Two versions of Sailor's Valentines for our dollhouse mantles.

       It is said that these Sailor's Valentines were made at sea during the long lonely hours by men on board ships for their loved ones. These love tokens of the sea have long since been connected to Saint Valentines Day for this reason.

Above are hundreds of strung, tiny sea shells.
Supplies Needed:

  • white school glue
  • scrap cardboard
  • decorative papers: solid pink or blue, wood grain printed paper
  • tiny sea shells
  • hexagon or octagon templates

Step-by-Step Instructions:

  1. In order to construct a small "frame" for your Sailor's Valentine students will need to draft a hexagon or octagon template. Trace around one of these two shapes on top of a scrap piece of cardboard.
  2. Then glue a length of cardboard approximately 1/2 inch wide around the outside edges of your cardboard shape.
  3. Decoupage the interior of the small frame using pink or white solid colored paper. The inside of such frames in real life were most frequently painted pink or blue by their ''sailor'' crafters.
  4. Cover the sides and back of your frame with wood grain paper.
  5. Now flood the inside of your display box or frame with white school glue and layer in tiny sea shells in a pattern or scene. Let dry over night before displaying your Sailor's Valentine inside of the dollhouse. Hang your creation(s) on the wall or display them on a fireplace mantel if your prefer.
Left, I made two hexagon shaped, shallow frames for my version of the craft. Right see here the
papers decoupaged to the outside and inside according to the directions. I began each patterned
display by gluing a single shell to the center of my design, but you may glue your shells inside the
frame as you wish! See here yet another version of this same craft at Thrifty Scissors. It is made
using paper shell printables.



Craft video by USS Constitution Museum Staff.

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