A family getaway to the beach offers a break from the day-to-day grind that’s good for one and all, parents and kids alike. One of the most enjoyable components of a beach day is the built-in entertainment. Parents don’t need to worry about keeping your kids occupied — you can basically slather them up with sunscreen, maybe equip them with a plastic shovel and pail and let the fun come to them.
BUT you can’t let the fam spend each and every minute getting blasted by unrelenting rays. Even the most rambunctious kids — and adults — are going to need some time out of the sun. That’s why we are pretty strong proponents of toting those craft tools along for your trip, because the beach serves up a bounty of craft opportunities on a silver (and quite sandy) platter.
Let’s get those creative juices flowing and run down some beach craft ideas that are sure to keep the whole fam buzzing with fun. You can set to work on these projects underneath a beach umbrella, or you can take these ideas indoors and enjoy a little cool reprieve from the sun while you and your little ones create pieces of beach art that will help you savor every moment.
Shark Tooth Necklaces!
This is perhaps the only item on the list that is equally beloved adults and kids — hunting down shark teeth and then turning that booty into necklaces.
Spotting shark teeth can seem tricky at first — how are you supposed to spot those little suckers amid all the other shell bits? But the truth is, once you spot a few, you quickly get the knack for it. To boost you on your way to tooth-spotting mastery, here’s a little hunting how-to from Jacksonville Beach Moms.
And once you and your brood amass a bunch of teeth, you can begin fashioning those found shark gnashers into the ideal beach-going accessory. Is it tricky? Welp, not really — at least it’s no more difficult than spotting the teeth. Don’t believe us? Well, just check out this guide from Crafting a Green World.
Before you know it, the whole fam will be showing off their cool new jewelry.
Multicolored Sand Bottles
This little idea is fun for all and truly as easy as pie, giving even your littlest crafters a cute item they can take back home and proudly display amid the knickknackery in their rooms. We’re talking about some fabulously cool-looking multicolored sand bottles. This will require just a smidge of forethought, as you’ll need some cork-stopper glass bottles and food coloring, but, apart from that, you’ll just need some scoops of sand.
Once you collect the sand, bring your crew back to the condo or wherever you’re hunkered down during your trip and then separate those grains into multiple little containers and add your food coloring — just a ten or so drops should do the job.
When you have a bunch of dyed sand colors to choose from, then you can get to work adding layers of color to your jars. You really can’t go wrong, and these jars always turn out great. Of course, you can get funky with it, adding little bits of shell here and there, or perhaps you’ll want to add a favorite shell on the tippy top.
For a thorough tutorial, dig into this guide to making sand art bottles from Diana Rambles.
Family Beach Art Collage
This idea really brings the whole family together. Here, the idea is for everyone in the crew to draw or paint a few of their favorite items from the beach. This could be lighthouses, seashells, dolphins, sharks or even some imagined deep sea creatures; there are no hard and fast rules; each creator simply has to follow their creative energy.
And then the fun gets kicked up a level: For the next step, you’ll break out the cutting mat and craft knife, and then get down to the business of cutting out these works and then combining the individual pieces into one sprawling family masterpiece.
Now there’s about a 99.99 percent chance this joint effort is going to end up looking pretty silly — in fact, if it looks totally ridiculous, you can trust that you’ve done it just right! Once the items are pasted together in a fun way, you can take turns adding beach flourishes to the canvas (here, the canvas will almost certainly be a piece of construction paper).
You can’t go wrong and, really with this one, it’s also impossible not to have a good time.
Build a Sandcastle Mansion
We’ll admit that this idea is far from original. But it’s here because it has to be: In fact, if you and yours don’t combine efforts to build a massive sandcastle on your beach vacation, you can hardly say that you’ve had a successful beach vacation. Take a day and do it right. Kids love it. Adults can’t help but get into it.
And let us just remind you: When it comes to fun, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes the tried and true is the most enjoyable option.