Seashell Decoupage Artist Creates from Canyon Home

Kellie Logsdon in her Mermaid captain’s hat

By Laurel Busby

News & Information Editor

Seashells, paint, and napkins inspired Kellie Logsdon to leave her real estate career and become a full-time artist.

In 2024, the venture began after her best friend forwarded Logsdon a video about seashell decoupage and then brought over a bucket of oyster shells to get her started. Soon, Logsdon was cleaning, bleaching, and painting the shells, then applying tissue or napkin images with Mod Podge before finishing the shells with gold paint.

“When I started, I wasn’t very good at it,” Logsdon said. But, “I would look at my finished art, and instead of being discouraged or tossing it to the side, I would say, ‘It’s not very good yet.’ I became a voracious consumer of every kind of video on decoupage. It was like I was on a quest to make them so beautiful that I could take them from a home craft to real art.”

Previously, Logsdon had worked for 30 years as a real estate agent and still does property management, but she found that decoupage inspired her in a way that real estate never had. The process of creating her artwork was both therapeutic and motivating. Then, in January of last year, when the Palisades Fire broke out and destroyed so much of her community, she decided that she would leave real estate sales behind and devote herself to her art.

“Everybody lost everything,” Logsdon said. “A friend would say, ‘I had just put away all my Christmas ornaments. All of those memories are gone.’”

To help create new memories, Logsdon made hundreds of ornaments featuring Pacific Palisades images, such as 90272 or Palisades Forever, and she donated 200 of them to PaliHi for their gala. After 19-year-old Palisadian Braun Levi died in a car accident, she also donated a portion of her ornament proceeds to the Live Like Braun Foundation, and she welcomes the community to reach out to her for future fundraisers.

“It’s not all about making money,” Logsdon said. “It’s about being more heartwarming and giving people memories and keepsakes.”

A selection of Kellie Logsdon’s ring dishes and ornaments.

Since she began devoting the majority of her time to her art business, her ornaments and ring dishes have become popular sellers in Santa Monica, Catalina, and Palisades stores as well as in booths at special events, such as the Redondo Beach Riviera Village Summer Festival and the Summer Soulstice Festival on Santa Monica’s Main Street. For the festivals, Logsdon increases production to make perhaps 500 items in a week, although in a typical week, she might create 100 items to sell at stores or via her website coastandcanyonshop.com.

In the Palisades, the Pali Trading Post, a new store at 15248 West Sunset Boulevard, sells her ornaments and ring dishes. Over the past week, her wares have been such hot sellers, that even before the store’s official grand opening on July 1, they had sold out, and Logsdon rushed to replenish their supply.

Logsdon makes not only Palisades mementos, but also ornaments that feature flowers, animals, and varied designs. Her prices depend in part on the size of the shells, because the larger shells are generally more expensive and more difficult to acquire. Her decoupaged mini-oyster shells might be $10, while small scallop ring dishes are $30 and Christmas ornaments are $38. Jumbo oyster shells are $145.

A ring dish by Logsdon

Her twin brother, Philip, has helped with the endeavor by drilling holes for the oyster ornaments, cleaning and cutting the shells, and priming the ribbons. The activity has offered a nice way for the two to spend time together in their mother DeDe’s childhood home, where Logsdon moved in 2014 with her young daughters, Holland, now 27, and Piper, 24, Ackerman.

The home was built in the 1950s by Logsdon’s grandparents, Ray and Margaret Dodd. Margaret grew up in Santa Monica after her parents immigrated from Ireland in 1914, and in the 1950s, she spotted the Marquez cemetery and the empty lot next to it, which she and Ray purchased to build a home.

That home has now shifted to become not only a living space, but also a busy working studio filled with art supplies and finished pieces from Logsdon’s new enterprise.

“The house has been taken over by seashells,” she said. “My lovely husband [Peter Evans] has been incredibly supportive of the whole thing, and it’s grown into this beautiful business to make keepsakes for people to cherish and use.”