Saving those Summer Treasures

My girls are collectors.  They love to find and collect treasures, and this multiplies in the summer.  I thought we could make some special boxes for them to store (and contain) their treasures this summer.  I drew inspiration from the awesome site Kiboomu.

This craft started with a trip to the dollar store.  Normally I take the kids with me so they can pick out their craft supplies but I was out without them for a meeting and stopped off on my way home.  They didn’t have exactly the boxes I was looking for but I found something that would work.  They came in many colours but I picked the light yellow ones so that it would be easier for them to paint them whatever colour they wanted.  I also found some cool shells.

The first step was to paint the boxes.  Kaitlyn’s favourite colours right now are orange and red so she painted the ends orange and the sides red.  Eileen decided to use 4 different colours and did an awesome job painting all on her own. For the lid Kaitlyn decided to paint the lower part brown for her sand and then the top blue for the water/sky.  The uneven painting created a great texture and the impression of waves in parts.  After letting them dry overnight we added real sand to the ‘sand’ portions of our lids.

To add the sand they put glue whereever they wanted the sand to stick and then sprinkled sand over top. To decrease the mess I found that working in a large baking dish was handy.  They simply poured the sand over top, then lifed the lid and shock off any excess and I poured the leftovers back in the bucket.  Other than the time when Eileen took a large handful and threw it on the table it was a relatively clean craft.  To finish off they glued on a number of shells and stones and then I added the titles for them.  An easy craft they could both do by themselves and they are now prepared for treasure hunting!