Mermaid Shrink Art Ornament

We have a small neighbour who loves mermaids so we wanted to make her a personalized ornament for the holidays!

Materials

• Clear, plastic, fillable ornament
• Beads (You could colour cotton balls blue, use gems etc- just be sure it is something light!)
• Shrink art paper
• Paper
• Pencil/eraser
• Scissors
• Fishing line
• Pencil crayons
• Hole punch
• Ribbon
• Sand paper
• Tape
• Optional: Other beach-y items: seashells, beach glass etc.

You are going to need these items for the the shrink art itself:

• Cookie sheet
• Oven mitt
• Oven
• ADULT assistance

Directions

• Look at the size of the mouth of your ornament if you are using one that opens from the top.  According to the product directions we knew that our drawing would shrink to approximately to half the size so we slightly less than doubled that width for our shrink art portion and the rough sketch paper.

• Pre-heat your oven according to your product directions.

• Draw your mermaid on your piece of paper.

• Scuff your shrink art paper with your sandpaper (you can also buy it in a pre-done version).  Lay it overtop of your drawing and trace it with black pencil crayon, pressing hard to make dark lines.  Colour your mermaid in.  We found taping our paper to our work surface and then taping our shrink art paper in place helped with the tracing process.

• Slowly cut your mermaid out, making a tab at the top of her head and punching a hole in it.  *This is important!*

• With an adult, lay your shrink art pieces on a cookie sheet, spacing them apart.  Pop them into the oven and follow the product directions for baking.  Have an adult remove them from the oven while wearing an oven mitt.  Allow the tray to cool and then remove your pieces.

• Put your fishing line through your hole and then attach your mermaid to the cap of your ornament or the loop as with ours.

• Place your funnel into your ornament and then carefully pour in your “water” (We used small beads and recommend doing this over a tray or in a bin or box to catch any run-away waves!)  You could add additional items such as seashells, stars etc.) Since our one model of ornament has the two sides that fit together, we had an adult crazy glue shut the two sides- although this type of ornament is more flexible when comes to the size of the materials that go inside of it- this was one of the draw backs of the style.

• Have an adult help you place the cap of the ornament back in (this can be slightly tricky!), loop on some ribbon and hang your mermaid on the tree or give it to a friend!

• One thing that we always like to do to ornaments is to add our name and the year on the bottom or a discrete area in permanent marker.

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Purpose

• Creating with activities that celebrate the various seasons and celebrations of the year.

Safety Notes

• Use scissors and an oven with care and direct adult assistance and supervision.
• Cord, yarn etc. can be a strangulation hazard, therefore be sure to use with direct supervision and for its intended purpose.
• Beads can be a choking hazard, therefore be sure to keep them out of the reach of children ages 0-3 years of age or those that tend to put things into their mouths.