Beach Week Crafting

My hubby and I recently rented a house in the beach community of Aptos. During the course of the week, our three children, daughter-in-law and three granddaughters were able to join us. Knowing we couldn't be on the beach 24/7 I packed a few crafting projects that we did in the mornings. It helped fill up our days and keep boredom at bay for an 8, 5 and almost 3 year old. Many of the craft ideas were Pinterest-inspired.  Love that site!

Of course, we did the normal beach activities and made many a sand castle and moat!

We made handprint crab t-shirts.  This involved an adult per child as painting red paint on little hands can be quite messy!  To do this, paint one hand (quite heavily) with red paint. Place on t-shirt with thumb facing toward neck of the t-shirt.  Wash hand and apply red paint to the other hand.  Slightly overlapping the palm, repeat the step. Once they were dry I glued eyes and made a smile with a marker.

A few days later we wore them on our trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

Another morning we made caterpillar refrigerator magnets.  I bought a few packages of small pom poms, regular clothespins and pipe cleaners.  The girls glued in various color combinations.  When done we glued a magnet to the back of the clothespins. They each had enough to keep at their homes and some to give away to their other grandparents.

We painted rocks to look like ladybugs and bumblebees, making a tic-tac-toe set. The girls had fun painting them and later playing the game!

I combined fairy wings and jump ropes so that they looked like butterflies. The girls spent a lot of time on the deck playing with these.

The girls were quite proud of their creations and I enjoyed our crafting time together. And all the adults enjoyed not having bored, whiny kids around! Ha ha!

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