I used to love collecting shells on the beach when I was a child. I would happily wander up and down the sand looking for different shells and pretty rocks. Now my family loves to do it with me. Hunting for sea shells is something that I will never grow out of.

You can make some really beautiful things from the shells and pebbles that you pick up on a beach. I really wanted to show you how to make a seashore card with the things that I find and some pretty handmade papers.

You can either copy this one, or make your own completely unique one. Every card will be unique anyway, as shells have variation in their natural markings.

To begin making your own beautiful seashore card, start by folding a sheet of paper in half to make the actual card. Then tear out two squares from some other handmade papers in contrasting colours, making sure that you make one smaller than the other.

Next, thread a darning needle with some raffia and carefully sew the larger handmade paper square to the card in a rough running stitch around the edges.

Now glue the smaller square to the centre of the larger square on the card using PVA glue. Then glue on some seaweed and a pretty shell.

Next, back a piece of fine grade sandpaper to some double sided sticky tape. Then cut out some starfish shapes from the sandpaper, and remove the backing paper from the double sided sticky tape. And stick one starfish into each of the corners. Then glue a really small shell onto the middle of each starfish.

Now, cut out a rectangle of paper with a triangular flap attached to it on one end. Make sure that the rectangle once folded will be the correct size to hold the card. So now fold the envelope and stitch the sides together as before using a rough running stitch. Start your stitching at the bottom and continue sewing to the point at the flap. Make sure that you leave a loose end of raffia.

Next, tie a limpet shell with a hole in it to the two loose strands of raffia. Then wrap the raffia around the envelope and thread a feather through the raffia underneath the limpet shell to hold the envelope closed. Now you have a finished seashore card to send to someone special.