These mermaid DIY school supplies are so fun and sparkly! I had so many fun ideas for mermaid DIY school supplies I decided to include three awesome ideas in this one post. I especially love all the different colors of blue and teal that we used with hints of sparkly silver. My daughter is so excited to use her supplies at school in September, she has already been using the pencil toppers and pencil holder.
I have included the mermaid tail printables for you to use in this craft as part of my free printable resource library. Click here to sign up for my email newsletter and get access to my library of printables that includes notepaper and envelopes, postcards, doodle pages and more.
Make your own mermaid DIY school supplies
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Supplies
- Free printable mermaid tail templates
- Recycled tin cans
- Scrapbook paper in sparkly shades of blues, teals, and silver
- White printer paper
- Blue embroidery thread
- Ruler
- Scissors
- 1-inch hole punch
- Small hole punch
- Glue
- Silver glitter paint
Instructions for the mermaid scales notebook
1. First, decide on the color of scrapbook paper you are going to use for the cover, we choose a bright teal color. Cut out your cover, my daughter wanted a notebook on the smaller side, so we cut ours to 9 3/8 x 6 inches. Fold your cover in half.
2. Next, cut your printer paper a bit smaller than the cover. We used 10 sheets of printer paper for the inside, so folded in half makes 20 pages. We cut ours to 8 1/6 x 5 1/2 inches. Fold your paper in half and place your white paper inside your cover.
3. Using the small hole punch you want to punch one hole at the top and one at the bottom. This might need to be done in a couple of batches depending on your hole punch and how much paper you use.
4. Next, take your blue embroidery thread and loop it through the holes at least twice pulling tightly. Tie a bow or a knot to secure it on the outside. Trim any loose ends.
5. Time to decorate your cover! Using the 1-inch hole punch, punch out circles in different shades of blues, teals and silver scrapbook paper. We used mostly sparkly paper, which I thought gave it more of a mermaid feel. Decide if you are going to use a pattern for the colors or not. If you are using a pattern, arrange the circles in piles to make it go faster. We used a pattern of 6 circles to make our mermaid scales.
6. Glue down 1 row of circles. Make sure the circles are touching but not overlapping.
7. Start the next row with a circle in the middle of two circles as shown in the picture above. Continue gluing down that row with the circles touching but not overlapping. Continue to glue down circles to the bottom of the cover to finish your notebook.
This notebook was a bit time consuming but worth the effort! Definitely suited towards slightly older kids, my 8-year-old daughter needed some help with the placement of the circles.
Instructions for the mermaid tail pencil holder
1. Make sure that your tin can is clean, dry and free of any sharp edges. Choose the mermaid tail template that best fits your tin can, I included 2 sizes on the printable template.
2. Measure and cut out scrapbook paper to fit your tin can, glue the paper on.
3. Cut out your mermaid tail in a different color of scrapbook paper, we choose a darker shade. Glue it on the tin can, towards the bottom so it looks like the mermaid’s tail is coming out of the water.
4. Use your leftover circles from the notebook and glue them to the pencil holder. I also made some smaller circles with the small hole punch and glued those on as well.
5. Take silver glitter paint and edge the mermaid tail and the top and bottom of the can to make the pencil holder extra sparkly. Let everything dry completely.
Instructions for the mermaid tail pencil toppers
Related: Back to School Memory Book
1. Use the pencil topper template and cut out your pencil toppers using your scrapbook paper.
2. Using the lines I put on the template as a guide, cut two small slits towards the bottom of the pencil toppers. Slide your pencil through. These are so cute and so easy to make!
These mermaid DIY school supplies were so fun to make and my daughter is so excited to bring them to school in the fall. The pencil toppers would make a super easy and fun playdate craft or school craft that you could do with a class. I love how the mermaid scales notebook turned out, I might just have to make one for myself. We will definitely be making more mermaid crafts soon!
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How fun!
I bet my daughter would love to make a mermaid tail for her pencil and decorate her pencil can this week.
I hope your daughter has fun with this project, Christina! My daughter loves her mermaid pencil toppers, they are so easy to make.