Nature Mandala Art

Today, I’ve teamed up with Zappos x Crocs to inspire you and your family to #FindYour Fun!

One of our favorite fun family pastimes is hitting up the beach.

Okay, okay…it’s really probably my favorite pastime and I just drag everyone along with me.

But all the dragging feet and whining pleas “to just stay home and play video games” fall away pretty quickly once that salty air hits our noses and we sense the adventures ahead.

 

Video games become a distant memory, as they scan the sands and rocks for trinkets to collect and creatures to explore.

It’s probably one of my favorite things about the beach…just watching my kids be curious.

The side effect of that curiosity is that we often end up with burgeoning pockets and buckets full of messy, sometimes smelly beach treasures they beg to bring home.

Usually, I allow them to choose one and leave the rest, but this time I thought I would try something different.

Nature mandala art.

This time, I encouraged them to collect to their hearts’ content, and then we built a mandala of sorts… using their treasures.

It ended up being an impromptu teaching moment as well, as we discussed symmetry and patterns, and even colors and shapes for my four year old.

My oldest and I manned the mandala while we sent the others to search for another orange rock! More blades of beach grass! Or more barnacles!…but alas, we only found the one barnacle.

We centered the whole thing around this deceased (and smelly….eww) starfish that my kids were begging to take home. Instead, we created a piece of art as a nice send off to our poor starfish friend and our car was spared from smelling like rotting fish. Phew! 😉

It was so much fun! We created art for others to enjoy (we got a lot of positive remarks from passersby) and we created an exciting way to leave our treasures near where we found them, to be swept back out with the tide like earth’s natural etch-a- sketch.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, our usual beach footwear includes rain boots, because most of our beaches are pebbly and rocky. It can get a little sticky to wear boots as it warms up for summer, so Zappos sent us over some cute Crocs for the whole family!

They’re waterproof, comfy (oh my goodness, so comfy), and a great alternative to sandals which are no match for the sharp beach rocks. Plus, Zappos shipped them fast, and free! Which…if you know me, is a big deal for me. I hate paying extra for shipping.

I’m totally crushing on the new men’s Citilane Crocs. Like…I’m glad my oldest and I wear the same shoe size, so I can steal his from time to time. Although…would it be weird that my husband and I would match? Hmm…My women’s Citilane Crocs are pretty darn cute too. Oh! And there are some Crocs wedges that I’ll be posting on Instagram this week as well, that are super adorable and insanely comfortable.

I found our Crocs to be great shoes for romping through the tide pools, where we found more starfish…live this time. 😉

We also randomly explored with other people’s dogs, one who photobombed our pictures. Ha! It’s kind of fun to see a dog with our family…just not sure if we’re ready to make any furry additions yet. We’ll “adopt” all the beach dogs we can in the meantime.

After our beach treasure hunt, we stopped for dinner and then hit up another beach on our way home. We soaked in the slow, late evening light, which felt like the inaugural sunset to the rest of our summer adventures ahead.

Ahhh…now to get the rest of the pesky school year out of the way.

Shoe Source Links:

Black Citilane Men’s Crocs || Black and White Citilane Men’s Crocs || Black and White Citilane Women’s Crocs || Black and White Bump It Kid’s Crocs || Pink Bump It Little Kid’s Crocs 

Disclaimer: I teamed up with Zappos x Crocs to inspire you and your family to #FindYourFun. All opinions and content are genuinely my own!