Hermit Crab Paper Plate Craft

We've been taking care of my cousin's pet hermit crab for the last couple of months while her family stayed in Costa Rica.  My husband and I have agreed to be a "no pet household" but we seem to take in small creatures for other people while they travel.  The crab is a bit creepy (I can hear it crawling around the rocks at night) but also fairly interesting.  Its time to return him to my cousin so Little Guy and I made hermit crab craft this morning.  This craft is all over Pinterest so I don't know who to give credit for the original.

This is what we did:

 

 

1. We painted his hand with WASHABLE red paint and then set it down a a piece of white paper and waited for it to dry.
2. I cut a squiggly line (about the same size as his hand) from a small paper plate.
3. I drew lines on the plate to make it look like a shell.
4. Little Guy used watercolor paints to paint the shell.
5. I cut two rectangles from red foam (construction paper would work just fine) and glue on a pair of wiggly eyes.
6. I taped his hand print and the googly eyes to the back of the paper plate shell.

I LOVED the simplicity of this project.  It took just a few minutes this morning to complete it.  Little Guy kept painting after we finished the project. I'm sure that he will be showing this project to people who visit our house!