DIY Oyster Shell Candles: Coastal Home Decor and Gifts

Elevate your home with DIY oyster shell candles. Learn to craft these natural, luxurious candles using gold-sprayed shells and fragranced wax—ideal for nautical centrepieces or the perfect handmade gift.

This holiday season, transform the ocean’s treasures into a sparkling array of gold oyster shell candles, perfect for elevating your home decor or gifting a piece of the coast. While decorating my Christmas tree, I discovered some oyster shells were too big for ornaments. Instead of discarding them, I envisioned a more luxurious addition to my decor—handmade candles crafted from these shells.

Spray-painting the larger shells gold, I filled them with vibrantly coloured and fragranced candle wax, turning them into exquisite nautical centrepieces. These natural oyster shell candles, when lit, not only enhance the ambience but also boast an impressive burn time, thanks to the high-quality organic soy wax used.

Ideal for any occasion, from housewarming to dinner parties, these oyster candles represent a thoughtful and perfect gift. Presented in a DIY, nautical-themed gift box wrapped in tissue paper, they evoke an ocean of love and appreciation. Moreover, by utilizing recycled oyster shell dishes and free fragrances, this project aligns with eco-friendly practices, making these candles beautiful and kind to our planet.

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What You Need to Make Oyster Candles

• Large oyster shells – Ask your local fishmonger or restaurant. If that’s impossible, I bet someone is selling them on eBay!
• Gold Spray Paint
• Organic Soya wax flakes and candle wicks– or old candles
• Blue candle wax dye (optional)
• Candle fragrance oil
• Old cardboard gift box large enough to fit the candles in.
• Nautical themed gift wrap – for coastal decor
• Old saucepan and glass jug

How To Make Oyster Shell Candles

Step 1: The first thing I did was to spray paint the outside of the oyster shells gold.

Step 2: Next, I worked out roughly how much wax I needed to fill and make the handmade oyster shell candles. To do this, I filled each shell with water, tipped it into a jug, and measured the amount of liquid.

Step 3: To melt the wax to make the handmade candles, you will need a “Bain Marie.”   You don’t want to melt the wax directly as it is a fire risk.

To make your own “Bain Marie,” put the wax in a Pyrex jug or bowl and place this bowl over simmering water in a saucepan. This is the same method you would use to melt chocolate on a stove.

As soon as all the wax has melted (it will clear), add a few drops of dye to colour your candles. To keep with a seaside theme, I dyed my wax blue. You can also add a fragrance such as bergamot oils at this point if you want smelly candles.

Step 4: Carefully pour the molten wax into the oyster shells. Place a wick in each shell and use two wooden skewers to hold it upright as the wax cools and sets. You may find using a wooden wick cut to size easier.

Step 5: Leave the handmade candles for a couple of hours to harden the wax. Once the wax has set, cut the wicks down to size.

Step 6: Finally, as these candles are a gift, I made a lovely presentation box for them. I covered a cardboard box with nautical map wrapping paper and laid the oyster shell candles on shredded tissue paper.

If you can’t find any nautical wrapping paper, there is a large collection of wonderful free vintage nautical images for print and use.

Conclusion and Other Posts

These handmade candles would look fabulous as a centrepiece on the dinner table. Even though I have made these as a gift, I will keep some myself the next time I cook a special dinner. These other unique candle container ideas make a lovely homemade gift.

They are also a great craft to make and sell and a fun summer craft too.

If you liked this post, check out my scallop shell trinket dishes. Or these map seashell gift ideas.
You may like my repurposed denim fish pillow with the seaside theme.

For more tabletop light decorations, check out these stylish air dry clay candles and cute mini Chinese paper lantern tea light jars.