I did buy one souvenir on my recent beach vacation, but that is because I love little metal trays. But I also took beaches home with me with a craft project, and had fun with pictures using a stuffed animal. The advantage of making your own souvenirs is that it extends the vacation a little bit, into your craft time.
If you are not crafty, you can still bring a “mascot” on your trip for fun pictures. It should be something small, like an action figure, a flat cut-out, or in my case, a small knitted flamingo (pattern from “Knitted Safari” by Sarah Keen). Bringing a child’s toy with you can be fun- but be sure it’s something the child isn’t emotionally attached to. Set the toy up in different places, playing with forced perspective or posing to show action. One Instagram person I follow stuck figures to a train window to make them look like they were speeding across the landscape in a short video.
This trip, we decided to visit several different beaches in the area of Sarasota, Florida. I remembered I had little glass bottles at home and envisioned putting sand and shells from each beach in them- I got home and realized the bottles were way too small, but for $1.25 I got 4 larger ones. I made labels from white vinyl on my Cricut. I put in the sand and the tiny shells, and glued a shell to the lid. This was a fun and easy project, and in this case the sand from one beach was very different than another. Next time I will make sure the sand is completely dry before putting in, because it stuck to the sides. Other ideas are to make a small shadow box or basket full of shells.
