Swim Swim Christmas Ornament

Poor Lerch, won’t anyone love him? Won’t anyone be his friend? It can be awfully lonely in the fishbowl. Thankfully, Dinah shows up and their ‘cute-meet’ is truly the beginning of a beautiful friendship. We love Swim Swim. The illustrations are totally adorable, the message is simple, and the book itself is pretty funny. So, for this year’s Kid Made Christmas Ornament Series, I thought it would be fun to recreate a scene from the book. Read on to see how we made this ornament. Hint- it is ridiculously easy! Also check out more crafts for kids ideas that are cute and easy to create!

swim swim ornament crafts for kids 1

Swim Swim Christmas Ornament: Crafts for Kids

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Basically, I thought it would be fun to try and recreate the last scene of the book where Lerch and Dinah swim together, happy to have found their budding friendship.

swim swim christmas ornament crafts for kids

Materials Needed

How to Make the Ornament

  • Cut out the pieces for the two fish. For both fish, cut out a small triangle for the tail, and long oval (halved) for the fin from the orange and yellow craft foam. Cut out a small circle from the red craft foam for Lerch’s hat. For Dinah’s bow, fold a small piece of red craft foam in half and cut out a small pair of wings. This should make a little red bow. Cut out the smiling mouth from the black foam.

swim swim christmas ornament crafts for kids

  • Glue the small red pom pom onto the circle to complete Lerch’s hat.
  • Glue the super small red pom pom to the middle of the wing cut out to make Dinah’s bow.
  • Putting together Lerch and Dinah.
    • Most of this craft is doable for even really small kids. The craft glue could get tricky, but there is no reason you can’t use dimensionals or glue dots. That would make the craft very un-messy too.
    • Lerch and Dinah’s eyes and mouth will need to be stuck on the wide end of the egg. The tail will be on the small end of the egg. Ensure you stick things on the right end or the fish might look.. fishy.
    • If your kids are too small to follow a picture pattern, help them stick the eye, mouth, fin, and tail to each of the fish.
    • You will want to stick Lerch’s hat on with craft glue (or a hot glue gun), not the dimensionals.

swim swim christmas ornament crafts for kids

  • Twist the two pipe cleaners together to make a big heart. Basically, twist the ends of the pipe cleaners together. Then bend each side to form the two sides of the heart.
  • ***Adult part of the craft***– to finish the craft, you will need to whip out the glue gun. This part is definitely not for your kids. Seriously, I burned my fingers doing this… you definitely want to be very careful with the hot glue.
    • To put on Dinah’s bow, squirt a line of hot glue on the top of the Dinah egg. Stick the bow in the glue so it is standing up straight and hold it in place until the glue solidifies.
    • To attach Lerch and Dinah to the heart, squirt a relatively long line of hot glue along the back seam of the plastic egg. Carefully press the middle part of one side of the pipe cleaner heart into the hot glue and form to the glue line. You will want to press and hold the pipe cleaner into the hot glue until it sets. This is the part where I burned my fingers. Tip? Use a craft stick, or other implement that is not your finger, to help position and set the pipe cleaner onto the egg.

swim swim christmas ornament crafts for kids

  • If you love this craft and would like it to last more than one holiday season, consider attaching all of the fish body parts to the eggs with hot glue at some point. It isn’t necessary to do this in order to create the craft though.

To put the craft on your Christmas tree, just hang each side of the heart on two respective tree boughs that are about 3-4″ apart from each other.

Isn’t this the cutest craft ever?

swim swim christmas ornament crafts for kids

If you have never read Swim Swim, you are missing out. You can pick up a copy by clicking on this picture:

Thanks for reading!
Sara

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16 Comments

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  3. These are adorable Sara!! My bestie’s son loves Finding Nemo – I need to show him this book & ornament – STAT!!

    1. Thank you! I love this book so much and thought this would be a fun ornament to make. Best part? My 3-year old actually recognizes that it is the fish from the book. Score!

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    1. Oh, if you have young kids, this book is really fun. I kind of wish I knew who the real author was.. since I know Lerch didn’t really write it. lol.

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