A mermaid city in the sand

Do you live near the beach? I wish i did sometimes! Especially when I look back at old holiday photos like these ones and dream of future holidays to come. This is a blog entry that I have been meaning to write since last year when we visited the gorgeous far south coast of NSW, and I have wondered whether I should share it at all since it is only a little bit crafty. In the end I decided that I must because it was such a fun, creative and playful activity.

We made our mermaid castle in the sand on the spur of the moment, but if you are planning to make one in advance you could always take along a plastic mermaid toy or similar. If your kids are more into cars (I won’t say if you have boys because that could get me in trouble!) you could make it a city for cars and take along some toy plastic ones instead of mermaids. If you live a long way from the beach and are not going on any holidays anytime soon (although I know you wish you were) you could just make one in the sand box at home.

To make a Mermaid city, you’ll need plastic buckets, cups or containers of different sizes and shapes. This is the collection of buckets that we used, plus a plastic cup that we had packed for our picnic.

The girls and I had a great time making bucket-shaped castles with damp sand, we made LOTS of them and arranged the castles to look like a city.

Then we went on a walk to collect seaweed, shells, driftwood, sea glass and and other bits and pieces, because any self-respecting mermaid city needs a garden and some beautiful decorations.

Look what else we found…

And here is the mermaid city in all it’s glory…

Can’t you just imagine the mermaids moving in? What wonderful creations have your kids made in the sand?

More Sea themed craft ideas

– Make some mermaids from cardboard tubes
– Make a cute and easy toilet roll fish
– Make a sea shell art collage
– Make a box-headed sea monster
– Let the kids have fun with a mermaid play pond small world

For lots more crafty ideas with nature try visiting my nature crafts board on Pinterest.