Make a splash with our mermaid birthday party ideas! Get inspired by magical undersea decorations and party games for little arielles and tritons.
Engage your congregation in creating splashy decor as you set the scene for Scuba VBS or whatever undersea adventure you are creating. Each of these “props” are items that can be used i…
Make a splash with our mermaid birthday party ideas! Get inspired by magical undersea decorations and party games for little arielles and tritons.
Planning a mermaid party? If you weren’t before, you’ll want to now! Here are some of the cutest DIY mermaid party ideas I’ve seen.
Do you have dolphin loving girls in your house? I sure do!
Cool Undersea Paper Craft Ideas.
Hi Everyone! With the end of the year in sight, is your class struggling to maintain focus? Do you need a few extra fun art projects to get you through the end of the year? Here are some cute ideas to keep your students entertained before the year is over! Glam Jellyfish! Check
Now that I've used this fish template to decorate two separate Vacation Bible School events, I thought my simple fish outline cutout should have its own blog
Learn how to make a dreamcatcher! These paper plate dreamcatchers are so pretty, and they're incredibly simple to make! Keep bad dreams away as you make this easy kids version of a dreamcatcher. Make a Dreamcatcher A dreamcatcher is a Native American item which is traditionally hung over a child's bed as protection. Dreamcatchers allow good dreams through, while catching and stopping bad dreams. Most kids will enjoy this craft, but a DIY dreamcatcher is particularly great for kids who have trouble with nightmares. You can work through the problem together as you make the craft, and the dreamcatcher will
This page has a lot of free Paper plate crab craft and ocean unit crafts for kids,parents and preschool teachers.
There are some things I've relinquished as a church volunteer (this year was my last co-chairing the Easter Festival for one), but doing the decor for VBS is THE one effort that is so very dear to my heart that I can't let go. I've told the chairman of VBS that I equate the work I do on VBS to spa days. They are that relaxing to me, knee deep in paint, tools and craftiness. This year's theme was Surf Shack, and I began planning in the Fall of the year before. In order to stay on budget and get the biggest bang for the buck, it pays to plan and purchase over a long period of time, taking advantage of sales, seasonal stock and using that 40% off coupon at each and every visit to Michaels and Hobby Lobby. I've gone into a lot of detail below about my process and materials, and included some tips in red! What would Surf Shack be without surfboards. I actually found some old sheets of insulation foam in the storage section of the church dock, and when I asked about using them, was told that they'd been there forever and to have at it! I traced a surfboard shape using a transparency and overhead projector. Then cut them out with an industrial-sized hot knife. A local high school student in need of community service hours, Raya, is one of my all-time go-to people for artistic help. I handed these off to her (along with cans of latex paint and brushes; spray paint didn't adhere to the foam very well), and she made a weekend project of it, along with some friends. [NOTE: I also painted the sides and backs of the boards. We used them for kids to hold at various pre-VBS promotional events, and so having them completed on all sides gave them a much more finished and authentic look. For VBS itself, they leaned against things.] Raya also took on the project of making these customized life preservers for the front doors of the church. I purchased round pieces of styrofoam from Michaels. They had flat fronts and backs, which I thought would be OK, but I wound up no liking how they were missing the rounded front-facing surface, so I took Dollar Tree pool noodles and cut them in half length-wise, and taped one half-moon noodle to the front of the styrofoam. Gave them to Raya along with white and navy duck tape and white rope. [NOTE: For extra artistic hands, reach out to your neighborhood high school art department. Students are always in need of community service hours. And what better way to earn them than doing what you love!] For the lettering, I typeset then printed out the words, cut out each letter, and Mod Podged them on. I poked a hole in the back of each preserver, and hung them from the doors using Command Strip hangers. A seagull printed out on the color printer, cut and taped on the inside of the window with double-sided tape, was a nice touch at the entrance. I knew I wanted lots of pilings around, and so I collected large cardboard tubes. Mine were salvaged from my workplace (where we had a surplus of shipping tubes ready to be recycled), but you could probably go to a carpet store or a display company and get them for free. I had one of the guys from church cut them at various heights (some straight across and others at an angle) using an electric saw. Then I cut cardboard pieces for the tops and taped them on. They got a sloppy coat of base paint, and then I went to work painting all the details, everything from the wood grain to the seaweed-stained bases. Once the detail painting was done, I hot-glued several pilings together, wrapped the trio with rope, and added the fishing net (another Dollar Tree find; purchased a bunch of these!) and a wooden pelican (affordable with the 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby). Another paper seagull and a poster completed this vignette. The poster is printed out from a large-output printer and mounted onto foam core. Command Strip hangers (the metal-hook kind) were perfect, as the hook went right into the foam without breaking through the front surface of the poster. Dollar Tree also had lots of these grass skirts, which I used for the roof of the Surf Shack and also, as shown here, to hang from handrails. Kids love touching stuff, and so I like to add tactile items all around. I also hung the skirts across the entrance to the sanctuary to set the stage for the tropical theme. Surfboards flanked the entryway, held in place with a small wad of Florist Cling. [NOTE: Cling is a great way to secure items. A little wad is all it takes. It comes off very easily, and if there is any residue left, just use a little Goo Be Gone. I always have a roll of Cling for every event I do. I have it in both green and white.] The jointed paper parrot is another Dollar Tree find. The side walls of our sanctuary are covered in cushioned and upholstered sound panels. I decided to drape rope (the same used for the front door life preservers) like a clothesline, and then hang beach towels from the line. The beach towels are from Dollar General. I chanced upon them when they were on sale for buy-one-get-one-half-off. At $6 a piece, the second one for $3, they were a bargain. I debated asking the congregation to donate old beach towels, but I knew I wanted fun, bright-colored ones, so I went the route of buying new. I hung the rope and secured the towels using T-pins. Then added the clothespins. The paper seagulls are used here as well. You can see that I secured them with extra long straight pins, not putting them flat against wall, but floating them to give them a more 3D look. Under the light sconces, and secured using T-pins, are Dollar Tree buckets and shovels holding brightly colored silk flowers. I printed out Surf Shack logos and glued them onto the front of the buckets. Here is a view from the altar to the back of the sanctuary. We have these six large windows which always push my creative thinking. I decided to turn them into aquariums. The window sills are about 3 inches deep, so I knew I could create a cool environment. I made coral using Great Stuff. [NOTE: This stuff is a VBS decor staple. Once a can is opened, you pretty much have to use it all in one sitting, AND you must wear rubber gloves as it's an absolute mess and hard to get off your skin. I use it not just for an adhesive, but for actually making things, like the coral here, and wave foam as you'll see further below.] I put down a large sheet of plastic tarp, and sprayed the coral shapes directly onto the tarp. Once dry, each piece of coral peeled right off. I made six whole pieces, one for each window. I spray-painted each. And secured it on the sill using Cling. The sea life is printed out on a color printer. I printed out a sheet, then created a mirror-image version of the document, printed that out. Cut out all the sea life and taped them so that each had a front and back. These were adhered to the coral and the window using either double-sided tape (on the window) or Cling (on the coral). Here are the windows from the other side (in the narthex). On this side, we've covered the window with blue cellophane, holding the cellophane in place with clear packing tape. I wanted a solid piece of cellophane on each window, and with the windows 40" wide, I wound up ordering the cellophane from U-Line. I couldn't find anything larger than 36" wide in stores. I had to buy 4 rolls (WAY more than I needed), but we used it for water for the Surf Shack set. And now onto the Surf Shack! Here is the altar area with the set. The Surf Shack is made of 2" thick 4'x8' foam, which a member of our congregation gets for me every year. It's not available at our local Home Depot or Lowe's, so he has to go to a special building supply company. But it's worth the extra effort. The stuff is super sturdy, but light enough to move easily. It cuts well if you use an industrial-strength hot knife (I get mine at Harbor Freight Tool). And it takes paint like a champ. I made up my own pattern for the shack, cut and painted each piece, then constructed it once in the sanctuary, attaching the pieces using long carpenter nails. The roof is covered in two layers of grass skirting. The hut has two windows and a half-Dutch door. One of our crafty ladies, Lavonne, made the latches using flexible sheets of foam (the kind kids use for art projects). She secured the latches using T-pins (she painted the top of the T black so you couldn't see them) and then gave them a little extra security with a drop of hot glue. The door opens and closes easily! She also hot-glued tall grasses around the base for that beachy vibe. I made a trip to Goodwill and got some touristy beach-shop t-shirts and a dress. Hung them from T-pins. Adding them last minute really helped to make an authentic Surf Shack feel. The tin signs (the Coke thermometer and Icee advertisement) were purchased from Hobby Lobby using my coupon. The card stock Surf Shack sign is from Cokesbury (I just cut it out from the colored background so it's "solid wood"). The wood grain is easily done using both dry and wet brush techniques. It doesn't need to be perfect. I used gray, black, brown and cream to achieve my look. [NOTE: I always go to my Ace hardware and ask for mixed paints on clearance. It's a crap shot as to whether they have a color in the family that I'm needing, but I've built a good enough relationship with my red vests, that they are always more than happy to drop in a few squirts of color for free to get me closer to what I need.] The tiki torches are from Dollar Tree. I removed the lids and wicks, and made "flames" from orange, red and yellow acetate. Rather than purchase expensive acetate from an art supply store, I found colored acetate subject dividers from Dollar Tree — cheap, cheap, cheap. Just cut them into flame shapes and hot glued them inside the lip of the lid. The rainbow umbrellas I used throughout are from Target. I purchased four at $15 a piece. They were available online only, but I had them shipped to my local store free of charge, and picked them up. Easy peasy. The palm trees were a true labor of love. I knew that to make a real statement, they'd have to be tall, but that would have involved a lot of supplies and engineering, so I opted for smaller ones that I staged from behind the Shack. Each trunk is 5 pool noodles taped together. Lavonne, always one to exercise her creative noggin when it comes to problem solving one of my hatched ideas, volunteered to cover the trunks, so she cut brown craft paper strips in a shingled pattern, gluing them on to the noodle structure in overlapping layers. For the palm fronds, I started with two umbrellas. Ripped the fabric off, spray-painted the metal framework green. Lavonne cut the fronds from green poster paper, then we painted on accents in a lighter shade of green. The fronds are attached to the spokes using hot glue. The handle of the umbrella fit perfectly into the center of the pool noodle trunk. The top of the noodles is covered in a nest of dried Spanish moss. Lavonne had some brown-feather-covered styrofoam balls which we both agreed would make great coconuts, but when they disappeared, she came up with this genius idea. Dollar Tree bath loofas spray-painted brown and hung from the spokes with safety pins look real and add no weigh to the structure. Love it! The engineering of the palm trees required an industrial-sized paint tub filled with sand, two broom sticks and a tall wooden table. The broom sticks were shoved in the bottoms of the trunks — far enough in to make the trunk rigid — with enough hanging out to be submerged into the sand. I still had to secure the one tree (the one out to the side and not using the shack for bearing) using fishing line to make sure it stay put. The line was around the trunk and then wrapped around a nail on the other side of the shack on the roofline. The surfboard/ocean backdrops are from Cokesbury. We attached them to rolling walls. I found a cute image of a pelican, printed him out, mounted him to foam core and put him high up on a ledge. We purchased the lifeguard stand from Cokesbury, but wound up using the doorway of the Shack as the staging area for our puppet. But the chair is a nice prop! Used the blue cellophane from U-Line as water. The hat, guitar, beach ball and flip flops are all from Dollar Tree. The "sand" is canvas drop cloths. The dock is made from a pallet. The pilings holding it up are small cardboard tubes. Everything is detailed to look like weathered wood. More pilings. I used one of my bird cages for decoration on the registration/information table in the atrium. Spray painted it brown, decorated it with silk flowers, lined the bottom with burlap, and added a Dollar Tree parrot cut-out (which is printed both sides!). As soon as we knew what our theme was, one of the gals on the Children's Ministry board sent me this picture in an email with a note that said "How about we do this for the individual camper photos? Ha ha!" Little did she know that I'd take her dead seriously and figure out a way to make it happen. One of the men in the church took on the challenge, and made a wooden wave, which is super sturdy and easy to move. With the help of another high school student (this one who paints sets for the school's drama department . . . well if that ain't a gift from God!!!), we got this painted to look super realistic! I found a wooden boogie board at Goodwill. With the back of it sliced off, it look just like a surf board. The foam of the wave is made with Great Foam on a base of cut foam insulation; Great Foam is also used around the base of the surfboard! On the Sunday before VBS, we had the wave outside of the front of the church. Parishioners loved posing on; wonderful picture-taking opp! We had Beach Boys music playing. And kids from the church carried surfboards and encouraged catching a wave! A couple other details. For the snack tables, we needed to label what was "dolphin," "sea turtle," and sand crab" — our three breakout groups. I had these pilings from when I did a nautical shower, and I was able to repurpose them here. The crab has a sand and shell base, and the dolphin and sea turtle have clear and blue marbles / glass baubles to mimic water. The animals themselves are glued onto a piece of clear acetate and just shoved into the sand/marbles. The animals are two-sided. For labeling the pews where each group sits, I had to not only designate by animal, but also by color. I purchased flip flops in colors I needed, and put the animal pictures on foam sheets also in the designated color. The flip flops were attached to the pews with Command Strips (the hooks embedded in the sole of the flip flop), and the foam sheets are hung with string. If you have any questions about anything you see here in the post, please don't hesitate to leave a comment here. Please make sure you leave your email address so that I can respond!
Throw a fun and magical under-the-sea birthday party! If your kids are obsessed with all things ocean and water you know there are many different kinds of themes to choose from. Here you’ll find ideas suitable for mermaids, sharks, or a general ocean/under-the-sea theme. Planning a kid’s birthday party can be a bit overwhelming but …
Want a fun under the sea activity to do with your kids? Then why not grab this printable build a shark craft and let your children get creative!
Amazing under the sea decorations. Perfect inspiration for your VBS, mermaid, or under the sea party. Make a coral reef, fish wall, seaweed. Entertain in style
MES DEL MAR Durante el mes de mayo en nuestro país celebramos las Glorias Navales , fecha importante que nos permite mostrar a lo...
This page has a lot of free Sea animal(whale craft,shark craft,sea horse craft,fish craft,crab craft,sea shell craft,prek oyster craft,star fish craft,jellyfish craft) craft idea for kids,parents and preschool teachers.
What Can you Do With A Sombrero? Jellyfish costume: 1) Get yourself a sombrero. 2) Cover sombrero with quilting batting. 3) Cover batting with fabric and carefully hot glue to the underside of the hat brim. 4) Hot glue ribbons and yarn on top of the fabric. 5) Line interior of sombrero with fabric and hot glue up to the edge of the ribbons. Optional- add netting ruffle next to the ribbons. 6)Make daughter dye her favorite pair of jeans the right color to match the costume. 7)Appease daughter for giving up her favorite jeans by helping her make matching earrings with shrink plastic.
Some pictures of colonnades from various churches doing Holy Land Athens or Rome Vacation Bible School. From Vineyard Church in Hopkin...
Art projects that are fun for both parents and children.
Want a fun under the sea activity to do with your kids? Then why not grab this printable build a shark craft and let your children get creative!
This DIY Paper Plate Porthole will provide windows to view your underwater experience! You can add any type of sea creature for your guests to view!
Well here we are at the last first birthday post! The blogger in me is happy that I finally finished these posts, but the mommy side is sad that they are over and I will now be starting his toddler monthly updates! The really sad part is that in real life he is already 22 months and that close to being TWO! It's kind of nice being so far behind because I get to reminisce a lot; smile and laugh over how cute and goofy he was. But alas, it is time to put the first birthday in the books. Before I start though, if you happened to miss any of the other first birthday fun check it all out here: First Birthday Theme and Photo Shoot First Birthday Festivities First Birthday Under the Sea: Party Guests and Photo Booth Pictures First Birthday Under the Sea: Cake and Presents First Birthday: Under the Sea Food and Favors DIYs and Tutorials Now that you are all caught up, let's get to the Under the Sea party decor and games: DECORATIONS These are the welcome signs we made for the party. The 'Happy to Sea U. Clam On In" sign was in the front yard. My mom painted the sand and water on a piece of cardboard and then stenciled some sea creatures and shells. I hot glue gunned some real shells onto the board and my brother's friend wrote the saying. The other sign was hanging from a trellis arch at the backyard entrance. We made this one basically the same way as the other. I added some shells, foam stickers, and animal stencils. I also used pipe cleaners for a little more flare. Here is a bigger view of the sign and a couple other DIYs we did for decor. We used the screened-in porch to house all of the food, favors, etc., so we added some sea themed items back there too. I tried to make some jelly fish from paper lanterns, but they didn't turn out as I had wished. I just added some streamers to the inside of the bottom of the lanterns. I crinkled the streamers in hopes it would give them more 'movement', but they didn't stay that way. I still liked them, but I am not sure that they really looked like jellyfish. We also added a DIY anchor. My mom strung a fishing net onto the wall and then attached an anchor she made from cutting out cardboard and painting. On the outside of the porch, I hung the picture banner that I made. The hardest part of this DIY was deciding on just 3 pictures to use for each month. I had to go through and organize all the pictures I had taken for the past year! After I had all the pictures printed, I put the actual banner together. First, I cut out the fish shapes, four of each color (teal, green, and orange), from scrapbook paper. Then I laid out the fish in the arrangement I wanted them to hang. I wrote each month on the fish (newborn-11 months) and then hole punched each fish and picture. The top two pictures I hole punched both the top and bottom of the picture. I tied the pictures together with twine and then to the fish that corresponded to the month of the pictures. Lastly, I taped the fish onto a long piece of the twine. My step-dad hung the banner with nails to the roof of the porch. This project took the most time, but it was my favorite part of the whole party. A peek into the porch: you can see all the details in the Food and Favors post. I already posted about our shark attack photo booth, but now I wanted to talk about how it was made. I got the inspiration from this picture I found on Pinterest and then I passed the dirty work off onto my family. They put their own spin on the idea and made it before we got into town. It was cut out of one huge piece of cardboard and then painted. They also added an extra set of teeth on the bottom. When I got there, I added the water/waves and streamers. I also made the sign for the photo booth. It is just a piece of cardboard that was folded and stuck in the ground with a stake. I wrote on it and then added some stickers and stencil cut-outs. This was my other favorite part of the party. I love the way it turned out. I don't know how I am going to top it for his second birthday. GAMES We had a lot of younger guests at the party, so I knew I wanted to have some games for them to play. Since it was August and an Under the Sea theme, it was only right for the games to involve lots of water! I made all of the signs for the games the same way I did the one for the photo booth. This game we called "Deep Sea Fishing". We filled up Myles' kiddie pool and added tons of floating toys (fish, ducks, balls, etc.). Then, we had each kid put on a blindfold and hold a butterfly net. I used the stopwatch on my phone to time them while they tried to pick up as many toys with the net in 60 seconds. My mom stood next to the kid playing and helped them empty the net when it was full. At the end of 60 seconds, my mom counted up all the toys they got and however many they got was the amount of pieces of candy they got to pick out to put in their sand bucket favor holders. Here are some shots of everyone playing. Myles just got into the pool and played with all the toys! The older kids did really well with this game though; a couple of them got almost all of the toys out in the 60 seconds! It worked way better than what I thought it was going to. The next game we played I named "Ocean Sand Treasure Hunt". My mom got this box from her work and we just cut it down to size. We added tons of sand and a bunch of party favor toys, shells, and these metal pieces from my mom's work that look like shark teeth (the top right corner on the sign.) Then we added tons more sand on top of all the 'treasure'. The picture below is to show the stuff we put in the sand (before we added the top sand.) We collected all sorts of shovels and sifters for the kids to use. The plan was to let each kid dig for a certain amount of time, but once they all got over by it, I decided to let them all hunt at the same time. They all got their own space and went at it. It worked out well because all the kids were nice and not pushy or anything. Whatever they found they were able to keep and put in their sand bucket favor holders. *I didn't think of this at the time, but it would have been a good idea to get a water bucket or hose to wash off all the treasure they found before putting it in their buckets.* There was just enough room for every kid to get a spot and they all shared very well. My uncle was trying to get Myles to join in, but he didn't really understand what was going on! All of the kids really loved this one too. The other game that was planned to be played (I made the sign and everything), was the "Crab Walk Relay". We ended up not getting around to playing it though. The kids were having so much fun playing with the water forts (see below), so we decided to just forgo that game and let them be. The plan was to have teams (kids and adults mixed) do the crab walk from one end of the yard to the other, relay style. We saved the messiest and most fun game for last! My mom and I had an idea to do a water fight, but we wanted to make it a little more exciting for the kids. So we came up with the idea to make these forts. This was the last project we were trying to finish right before the party and we ran out of time to really finish them, but they turned out well enough for the kids to have fun! They are just folded cardboard that got painted, stenciled, and adorned with some 'coral'. My mom had the idea to use a couch cushion to make the coral at the bottom of the 'Great Barrier Reef'. My brother and his friend we in charge of this project. She tore up the cushion into small pieces, spray painted them, and then glued them to the cardboard. The only thing we didn't get to was painting the animal stencils. You can kind of see the black outlines of them in the pictures. Time just got away from us and really they were just going to get wet and mostly likely destroyed anyway. Once we got all the water toys, shooters, and balloons set up, they made teams.. and of course, it was boys against girls! We had two baskets full of balloons and a bucket of water for the squirters and shooters to get filled up. Surprisingly the balloons lasted a while, which led to the kids having tons of lasting fun! I mean what can top a water fight in the summer?!? As I finish this last 1st birthday post, I'm getting kind of emotional. The good thing is we will always have these pictures to look back on and we're less than two months away from his second birthday party! I'm hoping it's a good one too, but I'm okay with nothing ever being able to top this one! Although Myles won't remember it, he had the best time and we couldn't be more grateful to all our wonderful family and friends that made this the best first birthday any little boy could ever have! Thank so much for joining along in my obsessiveness and all your sweet and encouraging comments! Do you have any favorite party games? Ones that your kids love or you loved as a child?
Fun and Funny uses for pool noodles, and some crafty hacks that make the pool noodle useful for so many other things!
