Beach-themed crafts will keep the kids busy at your next party.
If you have combed the breakers of your imagination and need something new to keep the kids busy at your next beach party, set up creative ports of call, complete with visa stamps and a travel itinerary. After every child visits each craft port, paddle into the kitchen to finish the party with a few edible beach-themed crafts. Each child who visits every "port" receives an extra-special souvenir of his world tour.
Chocolate Sandal "Candles"
So good you'll eat your shoes...
Fill a large round roasting pan with raw sugar crystals or loosely packed brown sugar. Give the children a beach-sandal-shaped candy mold, available at a confectioner's supply store, to press into the sugar to create a sand cast. Have each child loop red shoestring licorice around a pencil and place it across the depression in the sugar to be the wick.
Melt white chocolate over low heat in a double boiler until thin and runny. Fill each sandal-shaped depression in the brown sugar with the melted white chocolate. Allow the "candles" to harden before removing them from the "sand." Place each "sandal candle" in a clear plastic confectioner's bag, and tie it with curling ribbon.
Rescue Ring Mini Cakes
Rescue ring-shaped mini tube cakes save the day.
Find nonstick mini tube-cake pans at a confectioner or bakery supply store. Help the children mix one package instant pudding of their choice with one cup milk before adding it to a store-bought cake mix. Ask the children to stir the batter until the cake mix and pudding are well-blended but still a little lumpy.
Help younger children pour their mix into mini tube-cake pans. Older children will usually be able to pour without assistance. Bake according to the package directions for cupcakes rather than full-size cakes. Pop the cakes from the pans, and allow them to cool to room temperature before icing them to resemble rescue rings.
Beach Scene Wall Posters
Sand toy shapes help create these beach collages.
Ask older children to help younger ones glue a sand bucket cutout to an 11-inch-by-14-inch sheet of light brown construction paper. Add shovel and rake cutouts in contrasting colors. Provide crayons so that the children can add their favorite beach and ocean animals.
Give each child a glue stick and a cup of sand. Demonstrate add food coloring to the sand, and stir it with a craft stick. Help each child write her name with the glue stick before shaking the colored sand over the lines.
Help each child use a hole punch in the top right and left corners of their beach scene posters. Provide yarn or parachute cord to string through the holes to make a hanger. Allow the posters to dry while finishing other crafts.
Shell Creature Fridge Magnets
Any seashell can become a googly-eyed fridge critter.
Give each child a seashell, some googly eyes and a felt cutout shaped like crab legs. Provide clear craft glue to attach the eyes and legs to the shells. Add a piece of self-sticking magnet tape to the back of each shell creature.
"Your Home" Embassy
Provide 4-inch-by-8-inch sheets of leather-look heavy paper folded in half across the 8-inch side to use as "passport" covers. Give each child two sheets of 4-inch-by-8-inch paper to fold in half and place inside the "passports" before you staple them.
Provide sea creature stampers and blue ink at each craft station. Stamp each child's "passport" as they complete a craft. Give each child a certificate declaring them an honorary citizen of "Your Home" complete with the "ambassador's" signature.
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