DIY nautical themed boat

It's been more than a year since I last wrote here.  While I can list down a gazillion excuses, I've decided to get straight to the point of why I decided to resurrect this blog.

A few days ago, my husband and I celebrated our son's second birthday.  I decided to use the nautical theme since the boy loved everything about the sea - water, fish, and boats.  It was timely because he was gifted a red-white-and-blue ensemble a few months back by his godfather from the States.  Because I recently discovered the beauty of Pinterest (yes, I have been living under a rock), I decided to look for great pinterest ideas on a nautical-themed birthday party.  I had no intentions to make it a big one or invite other people due to my husband's erratic schedule at the hospital.  I just wanted the little one to feel like he was on a boat, dolphin watching.  As usual, Pinterest did not disappoint.  I saw many DIY cardboard boats that art-challenged moms like me can recreate (emphasis on art-challenged -- up until now, I only know how to draw stickmen.).  My very supportive husband and I trooped to the art supplies store and bought the needed materials to make my ideas a concrete one.

Materials we used:
-  one cardboard box
- nautical blue poster paint
- flat paint brush
- red construction paper - to cover the interior of the boat
- 2 inch masking tape
- 2 slide holders - one for the oar and one for the sail
- blue and red colored paper plates
- styrofoam for the float; you can use cardboard if you want it environmentally friendly and cover it
  with recycled white paper
- raffia twine or brown garden twine or jute twine - easily found in Daiso :)
- pencil
- pair of scissors
- 1 foot ruler

After two hours of conceptualisation, taping, painting and drying, the finished product looked like a nautical-colored, viking-shaped row boat with an oar and a sail.  The makeshift seat was a traditional seat my dad got from Thailand.

I didn't want the excess cardboard to go to waste so I made it into whales but my son declared they were dolphins, so dolphins they are!

One of the "dolphins"

The young one enjoyed it very much and kept singing Row, Row, Row your boat :)

There you have it, my first post for 2014, and hopefully not my last. :)

Happy DIY-ing!