One more thing...

... before we go into the new year and I forget about this craft! As you may know, I have a crab cookie cutter, and while I got my fill of crab-shaped cookies this year I wanted to make one more craft during the holiday season. That's when I saw this craft and modified it for you to make:

Nautical Cinnamon Ornaments

(I looked up "cinnamon crabs" to see if I could tie it into a Crabday, but no luck there, folks.)

What you need:

3/4 cup applesauce
1 cup + 2 tbsp cinnamon
Tools: bowl, cookie cutters, a straw, and ribbon or string

That's it!

Mix the applesauce and cinnamon in a bowl. You can use a spoon or your hands. This stuff is messy! I used a spoon first then finished kneading with my hands at the very end before rolling it out.

Total honesty moment here: I didn't know if my mixture was perfect. I watched this video and the woman says, "If this mixture seems too dry to you..." and I was all, "How do I know if it's too dry or wet?" I based it off of how frustrated I got when cutting the shapes out: if they crumbled (which they did), I added a bit more applesauce. If they stuck to the inside of the cookie cutter (which they did), I added a bit more cinnamon. It wasn't pretty, but at least I smelled good while doing it.

So, back to rolling out the dough: put the mixture between two sheets of plastic wrap then gently roll out to about 1/4-inch thickness.

Cut your shapes and place them on a baking sheet. Once they're on the baking sheet, you can use the straw to poke out little holes for your string or ribbon. You need to do this before they're baked!

shapes set and ready to be transferred to the baking sheet

Bake these bad boys at 200 degrees F for 2.5 hours. You can also simply leave them someplace dry for 1 or 2 days if you don't want to run your oven for that long. I did a slight combination of the two (I ran out of time with this craft and needed the oven to bake our Christmas ham!) so I let them dry for a day after they had baked for an hour and a half.

Once they're nice and dry, you can decorate them with paint or metallic markers, or leave them plain. Hang them on your tree and enjoy the warm scent of cinnamon for holidays to come! (Just don't eat 'em! Seriously. Don't.)

Some of the finished ornaments! (See the other crab ornament back there?)

Adam wanted the crab to have different colors

on the tips of its claws like a white-tipped mud crab:

Rhithropanopeus harrisii, aka cute little mud crab!

We saw these little guys all over the place when we lived on Long Island. I'm also a bit smitten because some of them are Polish (albeit invasive from North America), just like my husband and me! (We're Polish, not invasive.)

Oh geez, this post got away from me. Onward to the New Year!

Crab Turkey!

Not to be confused with a jive turkey, a crab turkey is something wonderful that I just made up. Because I can. It's a turkey made out of, you guessed it: crabs!

kind of, crab-dressed-as-a-turkey, kind of

I love Thanksgiving but wanted more Thanksgiving decor around my house (this guy is rockin' the "give thanks" message, but he needed friends). What a perfect excuse for a paper craft, amirite? Here's the final product:

so colorful!

And here's how you can make your own:

1. Download this PDF and print it - card stock is best but plain paper works just fine

2. Color in the turkey body and 3 crabs (Don't mistake the turkey for a penguin like Adam did. Although you could make an all black-and-white crab turkey that would probably look pretty sweet!)

the husband hard at work

my (almost) finished coloring job

note: the circles making up the crab body will be covered up,

so you don't need to color them in

3. Cut out the pieces - I know the legs are skinny, so there are a few options:
a. Thicken the legs with your coloring implement
b. Don't cut out the individual legs but leave them as one big ol' crab leg unit
c. Cut around the individual legs leaving a white border - I did that for Adam's turkey and it really makes the bright colors POP!

option a on the top and b on the bottom

4. Glue them all together - the order, from front to back, goes penguin turkey body, small crab, medium crab, large crab. The crabs will all line up with their big circular bodies (carapaces). To line up the turkey body with its crab-turned-feathers, I bent the legs of both the turkey and the crabs before gluing so that I could make sure it would stand properly.

crab turkeys playing amongst the pumpkins

5. Enjoy your new crab-inspired Thanksgiving decoration! I think they could make great place cards for the kiddie table or you could write dish descriptions on their little bellies.

Oh, I don't know if you noticed, but I added little tubercles to my crabs' claws. We've seen those tiny calcium carbonate bumps on other crabs like the purple land crab pictured below and the warty crab.

tubercles and turkeys - they go claw in claw!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Sea-themed bookmarks

You know those days when you're fishing but all you seem to catch is algae? Frustrating, but instead of throwing all that green goodness back, save some for this little craft!

Algae Bookmarks

algal crab love

You will need:

algae

watercolor paper

water

tweezers

extra paper, a couple cloths, and heavy books

shipping tape (or a laminator if you're fancy)

1. Cut your watercolor paper to size, then submerge in water (this makes it easier to manipulate the algae)

2. Arrange the algae on your paper (tweezers help with intricate designs)

it took a little finagling to get the "Z" just right

and see how the crab has green eyes, just like an opie!?!

3. Place bookmarks between cloths to dry, protecting the algae design with your extra paper, and keeping everything flat with the weight of your heavy books

4. Once dry (maybe 1 - 2 days depending on whether or not you live in a temperate rain forest), laminate and enjoy!

these were made at NOAA as examples for

Sea Week and Discovery Southeast activities 

more examples - see my little crab?

Let me know what kind of designs you come up with!

T-shirt craft by the Amazing Amelia!

When my big sister Amelia saw the Snow Crab Love logo, she told me she wanted it in t-shirt form. Actually, it started way back when she saw this goofy awesome picture of me from the NMFS summer trawl survey in '09:

the original design! although, admittedly, I am eating red king crab...

Amelia has a degree in elementary education, taught for a few years in public schools, and is now home schooling her 3 beautiful daughters. So, true to form, she turned her want for crabby t-shirts into a fun project for the kiddos. And she's letting me share the details with you!

First she had to gather all the materials (and she downloaded a jpeg of the Snow Crab Love logo):

This was a Valentine's Day project, hence the pink shirts,
plus Crayola Fabric Crayons - who knew?!?

extra fabric paint she had on hand from past projects

Second, she taped the print-out to the window so that the girls could color in the image with those fabric crayons. You can see that it's been placed so that their drawing will be a backwards version of the original image, and she used the window to make it easier to see. This way, when it is ironed onto their shirts, it will face the right direction!

(Yes, this was in February. And no, that's not what

my backyard looks like in February either. 

Yes, I am a bit jealous!)

Coloring! And, Amelia says, "Pressing hard"!

A finished drawing, ready for the heat!

Third, Amelia ironed the images onto each girls' shirts. I would suggest just following the directions that come with whichever product you end up using.

this is where adult supervision is handy

ironed on and ready for some glitter paint!

Fourth, everyone broke out the fabric paints for those special finishing touches:

Boo's sparkly shirt
(my sister uses little nicknames for her girls)

Bug's peaceful crab shirt

Bear's sweet shirt - I love the purple bow!

Amelia's shirt, because she's not going to let the girls have ALL the fun!

Great job girls! And thanks, Amelia, for sharing the how-to. These look amazing (WAY better than mine - I guess I'm going to have to make a new one)!

Valentine's Day Lobster Craft

Valentine's Day is coming up and I know you want to make something special for that lucky person/pet/study animal in your life. I was inspired by these cards I bought for my sister 2 Christmases ago from the wonderful Alaskan artist Sarah Asper-Smith (of Smack of Jellyfish fame):

The idea is she takes an Alaskan animal and says, "If you were a [catchy animal]..." (open the card) "I would [do something similar to what the aforementioned animal does in the wild]". A sweet example is her octopus card that reads, "If you were an octopus, I would grow eight arms to hold you." Aw!

I was also inspired by Trevor Corson's book "The Secret Life of Lobsters" about American lobsters (Homarus americanus). In it I learned that, to let a male know the female is ready to molt and willing to mate, she will approach his den and "waft her perfume" towards him, i.e. she releases urine filled with her pheromones towards his face. She pees on him.

poor (lucky?) guy

There's so much more to it than that, so if you're interested in lobster mating, you should pick up the book. But that's the... aromatic gist.

so sweet, and yet I can't help but laugh!

SO, I've made my own lobster-themed card a la Sarah Asper-Smith with my Trevor Corson knowledge so that you can have a special card for that special someone on Valentine's Day!

Directions:
1. Download above picture

2. Print onto paper or cardstock

3. Fold in half and cut out the heart through two layers

4. Fold in half again

peek-a-boo!

5. Sign it, give it to someone, wait for their unencumbered love in response

Holiday snow [crab] balls!

Need a craft for this holiday season that's easy and inexpensive? And, of course, crab themed? Me too!

I was inspired again by Martha Stewart this year to make snow [crab] ball ornaments for around the house (remember the Martha-inspired glittered crab cards from last year?). I figured making paper ornaments out of recycled paper from my school would be the perfect way for this grad student to spread holiday cheer on little-to-no dough! (Although I will be making cookies too... does that count? Hey-oh!)

recycled papers and old folders = craft supplies

Let's get to it! The paper ornaments I found are so easy to make. They're actually little cubes with pretty designs.

I really like the look of these ornaments, but let's make them crabby!

Directions:
1. Print out 6 circles (or 3 of these templates):

so pretty!



2. Fold the edges up so that you have nice surfaces to glue your squares together into a cube.

halfway there!

(and yes, those are mini clothes pins)

3. Add a ribbon or fishing line and hang with glee!

For the daring decorator, you can also make this behemoth using 20 circles!

this ball is made up of old Christmas cards -

brilliant! But not crabby enough!!

Directions:

1. Print out 20 circles (or 10 of these templates):

2. Bend the edges up and glue 5 of the circles together to form a dome. Do the same with 5 other circles so that you have 2 domes. These will be the top and bottom of your ornament.

3. To each dome, attach 5 more circles along the bottom edge to make a sort of jagged row/star shape. Do you see where this is going?

4. Glue the jagged edges of the top and bottom dome together to get your ball! Don't forget to add string or ribbon so you can hang it proudly in your home!

If you want to make your own crab design, here are some blanks:

oh, the joys of creative freedom!

And if you want to make a king crab ball to go with your snow crab balls, click here for the directions to make this crab pod from World Animal Day:

another Martha-inspired, crab-tastic ball!

Happy decorating and

Happy Holidays!

World Animal Day

Happy World Animal Day!

I didn't know about this day until I looked at my calendar yesterday and saw it written in (below the First Quarter moon picture). World Animal Day is celebrated every year on October 4th - yet another reason to love October (you know: fall, leaves changing colors, all the squash you can eat, snow coming down the mountains, and HALLOWEEN!!!).

To celebrate World Animal Day, I thought I'd take a little inspiration from my Halloween decorations:

from Martha Stewart's Halloween craft collection

and turn it into a crab-tastic piece that's both fun AND educational. This way you can use it for your WAD party (I'm sure you're having one) as decor, a conversation starter, and a way to learn a little bit more about the animals I love: crabs!

Why am I making a ball out of crabs? Red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) exhibit a podding behavior during the day, balling up with hundreds of their friends (they meander off at night to find dinner).

that's a whole lotta red king crabs!

See where I'm going with this? What you'll need to do is print out 12 of these for a king crab pod:

imagine all the colors you could use for this! Red, blue, golden...

Now the fun starts: connect three crabs together at one of the 5 points with a brad. I like to work around one main crab until I have 5 attached around him, leaving me with 6 total connected.

3 crabs joined together at one of the 5 points

 

6 connected (5 surrounding the main crab)

Next, take your 6 crabs and form them as a bowl in order to be able to attach 5 more crabs. Again, each point will connect 3 crabs.

joining 2 points in order to add

a third crab to this joint

the blue "brads" are where the original crabs

from the first group of 6 are joined together

to add a new layer of crabs;

the red "brad" is where the new layer of

crabs are connecting to each other

The last crab is the trickiest, but once he's on you'll have a wonderful, 12-strong pod of kings!

ready to hang for your WAD party!

Read about podding king crabs off of Kodiak, AK:
Dew, C. B. 1990. Podding behavior of red king crab, Paralithodes camtschatica. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 47: 1944-1958.