School Holiday Project 32 Making Sea Fairies

We have a lot of fun with the kids today when I show you how to teach them to incorporate found items from their surroundings in their crafts. I collected some shells and sea sand on a recent trip to the coast and this is what we will be using, but you can achieve similar results with sand/soil you have at home and special fall leaves, as well. You may want to call yours forest fairies instead. Let me give you some tips on what to do.

As we will be working with some heavy items, I give each child a sturdy piece of cardboard to work on. This is the packaging of Long-life Milk boxes that I have cut up and kept for craft projects with the kids. These will be painted white using Dala Gesso, serving as a proper primer for the surface at the same time.

Once the primer has been painted, wait only a very short while for it to dry.

We will be using this red beach sand that I collected while holidaying at Hondeklip Bay in the Northern Cape. The beach is called Moordenaarsbaai (Murderer's Bay) by the locals. Ask for directions when you go there.

This is one of my holiday photos showing the beach with its crushed garnet sand.

We would also be using shells that I collected at another alcove in the Hondeklip Bay area.

Hondeklip Bay has a number of small bays like the one in the photo where the shells are littering the sands. Spectacular nature at its best in this rugged bay!

My idea was to have a fairy, seen from behind, with wings of shells and a hair bun, also made of a shell. I planned this layout, explaining to the kids where I was going with the project.

I then drew in the back of the head and the neck.

This was followed by the body (hidden under the shells) and the skirt.

My niece had her own idea, and I allowed her free reign to plan her own art.

Likewise, my nephew figured he would make a male fairy and followed his own ideas.

I used plain old wood glue on the bodice.

This was packed with the pretty red sand and then the skirt was also glued.

This too was packed with the red sand. The project was then laid aside to dry.

In the meantime, my niece had simply continued working on her drawing. I applied glue on the bodice and skirt.

She then vigorously covered the fairy in sand. We put it aside to dry.

My nephew, always the planner, had circled the outlines of the shells he was going to use, making it easier for me to know what he was planning.

We glued his body and legs as well.

He was much more careful in packing the sand on his figure.

Finally it looked like this. It was then put aside to dry.

Once the glue had dried, it was time to shake off the excess sand.

I then glued the edges of the shells where it would touch the paper.

This was done for both the wings and the hair bun.

The shells were laid in place and the project once more set aside to dry.

My nephew had opted to use this selection of shells and added some pebbles (also collected at the beach) as buttons. Note the hat at the top. The hat and buttons were all his own idea! Crafty little fellow!

My niece then decided that she needed to add a crown!

When we finally got a chance to continue the project a couple of days later, my other niece had joined us and I gave her my fairy to work on. It was time to paint the fairies and we would be using Dala Craft Paint to do it with.

I gave absolutely no rules, except the sand should not be painted, as this would get the paint dirty.

Every child got to decide for themselves which colours they wanted to use and whether or not they wanted to paint the shells as well as the background.

They were given freedom to experiment with mixing colours and play around with diffrent brush strokes.

Our little man was the first to finish as he was in a hurry to go help in cutting back the fruit trees.

A close-up of his male fairy interpretation.

The second to finish was this young lady with her signature rainbows.

A close-up of her project.

Lastly came this little darling who painted and re-painted her shells a number of times, thrilled by how the wet paint colours affected each other.

A close-up of her finished project. The lessons learned accidentally can not easily be replicated with equal success by a teacher!

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy the books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.

Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
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