Thursday, August 20, 2009

Ocean Themed Play Date

Here's my little sea princess wearing her shell crown. It came out so pretty and sparkly! It ended up being a very fun craft, but wow was it mess to make! The glitter + sand sprinkled on them means that this is definitely an on the back deck craft. Yesterday when my friend Margaret and her two daughters came over for a summer play date we started by making shell crowns. I got idea from my latest copy of Family Fun Magazine, the directions can be found here and the template here.

I really like how they came out and think the sweep up was definitely worth it. I precut the templates out of colored poster board. The directions say cardstock but the shells are pretty heavy so I am skeptical as to if that would've been sturdy enough.

We took of the bottle top and spread a very thick layer of tacky glue over the template. Even so I thought for sure I'd need to do some hot glue repair. Surprisingly, after a lengthy drying period, i.e. several hours, the shells did stay put when I formed the crown. While I wiped down the table the girls worked on coloring in these fun wooden stand-up princesses. I got these for a dollar each and they came with a little set of markers to color with. It was a nice quiet calm down craft.

We also made the ocean in a bottle and ER really likes hers. She's been shaking that thing for hours now. She won't put it down. It doesn't make for the prettiest picture because unbeknownst to me I was out of blue and green food coloring. So I'd look at the directions on Family Fun to see it.

We had one of the easiest play date lunches ever: cold cuts and cheese platters with fruit salad. Each girl got to make their own sandwich; I had a fish cookie cutter to make them all cute. But darn it. I forgot all about it when it came to meal time.Since lunch was low key and no heat we had time for a fun snack, these pearly bites also from Family Fun Magazine. They're supposed to look like little clam shells, aren't they cute! I like how they didn't require me to bake anything and needed minimal ingredients. They were pretty quick to make too. I think they passed the taste test, judging from the smile below!I used paint pens to decorate a little sand and water bucket for each of the girls to put their crafts in along with the pink rubber ducky we gave them as favors. But I forgot to take a picture of them. Two things I forgot to do, geez memory is going already! I was pretty happy with how the underwater scene one one came out too, so that's a bummer. We will be crafting away with the girls again this weekend at the much anticipated fairy themed birthday party for Margaret's oldest. Can't wait to share the pictures from that one!

15 comments:

  1. Katie, this looks so fun. I love a party or anything with a theme. The crown is so stinkin' cute and those pearly bites, oh my goodness. How cute are those. I'll have to remember those if I ever to any ocean theme thing. I love using Family Fun as a resource. So many good ideas. Looks like fun!

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  2. I love Family Fun magazine!!

    The crowns look great! I actually ripped out of the magazine the directions for the ocean in a bottle. The kids and I will probably make this before school starts. Of course I have to hurry that is in a week in a half.

    Hey! I downloaded a digital software from Scrapbookflair.com. It is a little restrictive but it is free and will work until I can get Photoshop 7:)

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  3. We have a storm coming in I will have to check out the smoothy giveaway later. I love the chiquita smoothies!!

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  4. what a fun play date!! i so wish we lived closer, we would appreciate each others ideas and company so much!!

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  5. Oh wow, this looks like so much fun!! I'm sure the girls had a fabulous time!!

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  6. You're such a cool mom! Good ideas!

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  7. Jeesh how adorable is that. I love it. Everything how fun!

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  8. What a fun playdate! I think theme deserts are so much fun. ♥

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  9. What am awesome playdate! Love the crown of shells, so cute!!

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  10. This is such a cute themed play date! Anything glitter goes over well here :)

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  11. Everything looks great. I love Family fun! so many good ideas come from that magazine.

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  12. Those are so cool! I love the crowns! I wish I had read about this before we had our ocean week here... although I'd be a little nervous about the sand and glitter, even outside, because these kids would track it into the house and I'd be in BIG TROUBLE!

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  13. So fun! I think that it is great you have these theme play dates. You should win Mom of the year! Can't wait to see the fairy party picts :)

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  14. This is just so precious, what adorable girls. Sounds like you enjoyed the project as much as they did. (I would have too.)

    ~Julia

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