We explored Mindfulness in Art with our last instalment on Kids in Adelaide with Nature Mandalas, with objects collected from the beach and the dunes. Thanks for the great images that came in with your beautiful mandalas…..amazing!!

In this instalment of Mindfulness in Art we are using all the beautiful shells we collected for our nature mandala to create a mobile. A project like this is even more satisfying when you are on holidays, creating beautiful memories and you can bring home an artwork to hang on your walls forever!

You will need the following:

* Shells from the beach – it is so much easier to collect shells that already have a small hole already in them….

* Small metal skewer for poking holes, or even a thick darning needle or tiny screwdriver (Mum’s you will need to do the hole creating as this is an extremely hard task….not so much mindfulness in this part, just patience!!!)

* Piece of drift wood

* Fishing wire

* Scissors

Have all of your beautiful shells cleaned and dry. Talk with your child about the type of pattern you would like to create with your shells. We used 4 lines with three shells on each string. This took about 40 minutes to create once we had designed the pattern. So, a little time consuming but well worth the effort!

Tie knots at the bottom of the fishing line and get your child to string the first shell through a natural or man-made hole. I then tied another knot at the bottom of where I wanted the other shell to sit and continued this process until I was satisfied I had enough shells on my string.

Repeat with the next string.

Place them all on the drift wood. Tie another piece of fishing line at the top on both ends. You will use this to hang your new creation!

Voila!

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