There's times you'll be
a sinking boat
left adrift at sea
and times you'll be
the ocean tide
breaking wild and free
there's times you'll be
a jellyfish
and other times a seal
and times you'll be
the great white shark
and times you'll be the meal
there's times you'll feel like giving up
and sinking to the floor
and times you'll float
upon your back
and wash up on the shore
but know these times
will come and go
and just like tides
will ebb and flow
and though you won't
know which you'll be
you're still a part
of that mighty sea.
- Dallas Clayton
Materials:
fish template (see form below)
skinny wooden dowels
scissors
cardboard - two 12" x 12" sheets
glue gun
acrylic paint
paint brush
nail or skinny push drill bit
sequins
1. Cut out your fish (1 big and 1 medium). Subscribe below to receive our free template.
2. Begin to trace your fish shapes onto your cardboard.
We were able to fit 5 large and 6 medium fish on our 12"x12" cardboard square.
3. Cut out your fish shapes with a sharp pair of heavy duty scissors, a utility knife, or a ceramic box blade.
4. Time to paint! We chose a light periwinkle color as our main color and used marigold, coral, and pale pink as our accent colors.
Every school of fish needs that one fish that stands out and doesn't look like the others, like our "Coral".
5. Use a ruler to start to crease your folds for your platform base. We lined our ruler up with the edge of the cardboard, held it down firmly, and bent the sheet. Then we created a second fold line four inches from the first and a third along the opposite side of the ruler. Finally, we formed our cardboard into a rectangular box shape, used a pencil to mark the overlap, and cut off the excess cardboard with a utility knife.
6. Glue a strip of cardboard the width of your ruler to the surface where you created your first fold. This will serve to reinforce the box and give you additional surface area on which to glue.
7. Finish your rectangular box by gluing it down to the cleat that you created in the previous step.
8. Paint your box and the skinny wooden dowels. We used the same periwinkle we used as the base color on our fish to keep it cohesive.
9. Punch holes in the box where you would like your fish to be placed. We laid ours out before making holes and used a push drill bit to puncture the cardboard, but you could also use a nail. Whether you use a drill bit or a nail, make sure that the diameter is smaller than that of your dowels so that they fit snuggly into the holes in the cardboard.
10. Cut your dowels to varying heights to achieve the look that you want. We played around with our layout until we knew how long to cut the dowels. Note: it's better to gradually shorten a dowel until you have the height that you want than to cut off too much.
11. Glue your fish to the dowels.
12. Arrange the fish according to your desired layout and push the dowels through your pre-drilled holes.
Like Dory said, "just keep swimming!"
