Painted Beach Bags for the Little Ones

Hear ye, hear ye . . . I’m declaring this to be BEACH WEEK 2014 on Average But Inspired.  Consider this the official proclamation by the mayor of Average But Inspired herself.  (I’m so power hungry. . . making up all these random holidays.)

As part of the exciting Beach Week festivities, I’m sharing these super fun beach bags that my kids made to bring on our trip to Seabrook Island.  They had a blast making them, and having individual beach bags actually made staying organized much easier!

First, I drew some sea creatures and items on the back of contact paper to serve as our stencils.  We chose fish, a seahorse, an octopus and an anchor.  Your drawings do not have to be perfect because your kids will inevitably get paint underneath the contact paper, which will deform the shapes anyway.

Next we cut out the shapes, removed the backing paper and placed them sticky side down on our bags, making sure to press them down the best that we could.  In this picture you can see that we’d placed one of the fish and still had to do the other items.

Third, we got down to business!  My kids loaded up their paintbrushes and got to work covering their bags with their favorite sea-inspired colors.  My daughter, who is a huge Octonauts fan, was insistent on having two different colors so that there would be a difference between the “midnight zone” and the upper part of the ocean.  Details details.

The little guy was pumped to be using such a large paintbrush filled with paint that leaves a permanent mark.  (I was having a minor heart attack at this point.)

Next we let the paint dry, and then we removed our stencils.  The bags looked like this with the stencils off.

They were a little plain, to say the least, so I got out the fabric markers and added a little extra detailing in the way of fish scales, tentacle suckers, eyeballs, etc.  The creatures looked a little happier (and a little more identifiable) that way.

I’m not joking that my kids were super pumped to carry these down to the beach.  They loved having their towels, sunglasses and sun hats in their own special place.

Isn’t my model scrumptious?  (The other one refused to stand still or make a normal face, so I don’t have a modeling pic of her.)

If you don’t have time to make these before you leave on vacation, bring some supplies with you (assuming your bag isn’t packed to the brim).  This would be an awesome rainy day at the beach or quiet time activity for the kids.  Plus, it makes for some great memories.

– Bre

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