Mermaid Days!

We are cautiously emerging from our social distancing cave and starting to see some loved ones. Our hearts relish the togetherness, but we are taking things slowly to ensure that we are still being as responsible as we can. This past week we enjoyed some time on the coast with cousin Waverly and her family. When Wavy comes to visit, she is ALL ABOUT craft time! So, I did a little search for a beachy project the girls could make. It didn’t take me long to discover this adorable egg carton mermaid tutorial by Arielle of Art Camp. I’m telling you, if you want to fall down the most glorious rabbit hole of art projects, you MUST check out her site and Instagram account. WOW!!! Her ideas are so fresh and creative!

Whenever we find projects online we try and incorporate a few little twists of our own. In this case we added glitter hair, fins, and “booby shells” (as the girls call them!) and a sequin pearl hair accessory. We also used the activity as an opportunity to talk with the girls about appreciating different skin colors— the takeaway being that it is important to recognize we all have different skin colors, and no one color is better than the others. I told the girls they could choose any skin color for their mermaids. Isla wanted her mermaid to have darker skin and Waverly chose to try and match her own skin color by blending paints (such a cool learning opportunity, by the way!).

We also chose to connect all our pieces by threading a pipe cleaner through the egg cartons, attach it to the tail fin on one end, hot glue it to the back of the mermaid body on the other, and twisting the leftover piece into a little hook.

Our little mermaids loved this craft, and they enjoyed some time on the beach splashing in the waves and giving Cole his own merman tail!

Sunshine, wave jumping, and hot tamale breaks with Nana!

Cole is not nearly as enthusiastic about playing in the surf as Isla and Waverly. He spent most of his time rolling around in the sand, and made a few brave dashes down to the waterline.