Moomaid, Merduck, and Purrmaids. Let the randomness ensue.

This week, I'm sharing some of the stranger and funnier mermaid mashups that I've encountered.  First up is Moomaid from Cow Parade.  She is a hand numbered figure that I've had in my collections for quite some time now.  She was just so glamorous and peculiar not to have.  She was purchased from a Hallmark Gold Crown store years ago, but you can easily find her on eBay at reasonable prices.

Next up is Merduck by Rubba Ducks.  My husband bought this strange rubber ducky for me on a trip to Disney Spring when we ate at the Boathouse; the gift shop sold these as well as other humorous ducks.  As soon as I saw her I chuckled.  You can find her available to purchase at Rubba Ducks website here.

Lastly, I saw there crazy kitty mermaid socks on a recent shopping trip to Forever 21.  Looks like you'll have have to pick these up in stores as I could not find them on their online shop.  Regardless, these Purrmaids are sure to be a conversation starter.

Hope you got a laugh from this week's post.

35th Annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade this weekend

This weekend on Saturday, June 17^th is the annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade.  This event is celebrating their 35^th year of mermaid madness. 

2017 flyer sourced from Coney Island's webpage.

Billed as an art parade that celebrates Coney Island’s history of oceanic entertainment, it is part burlesque show and part fanciful romp put on by the local community.  During the festivities, you will see many a colorful mermaid character and creative floats making their way down the parade route.

Above image sourced from The Mermaid Parade Facebook page.  Copyright Raymond Adams.

The event is said to be family friendly, but be warned that there are some mermaids and mermen that are minimalist when it comes to their “clothing”.  Example of this below.

Above image also sourced from The Mermaid Parade Facebook page.  Copyright Raymond Adams.

Coney Island USA, the resident not for profit arts center in Coney Island, is the orchestrator of this event and found themselves working down to the wire to fund this year’s parade. So, if you are able to attend this eye popping event, please do so as the support will be greatly appreciated by the Coney Island community.  You can find additional information on this event at Coney Island's webpage here.  You can also find more great pictures of all the fun on their Facebook page located here.

Mermaids in advertising

I’m sharing some recent examples of mermaids used in advertising that I found to be quite nice.

This ad was in a circular mailing some weeks back.  I’ve seen the commercial on TV for this product more recently, and they use the same mermaid and unicorn only animated.

Clipping from my actual circular.

This is from a Car Wash business in Naples, Florida.  It just a simple silhouette, but I still really like it.  If this was on a t shirt I'd totally wear it, advertising and all.

I've had this logo stored on my phone for years, so I'm not sure where I got this picture from.  However, you can find their Facebook page here.

 Another simple but pretty silhouette. This one is from a real estate company on Sanibel in Florida.  I thought the use of the shape of Sanibel Island for her tail was clever.

Image sourced from www.sanibelrealestate.net

I just saw the TV commercial for this product two days ago; it's what inspired me to do a posting on advertising this week.  While I don't condone drinking, I do like their logo and appreciate it's artistic quality regardless.

I couldn't get the website to work for me but I sourced their logo from their Facebook page.

I hope that you enjoyed this week's blog entry.  Have a safe and happy Memorial Day!

Live action musical of The Little Mermaid to air this fall on ABC

So this week it was announced that ABC will be airing a 2 hour musical event of The Little Mermaid.  The cast has not been announced yet, but it has been reported that the show will be a mix of live action and animation provided by Disney's cutting edge technology.  This all sounds exciting, but I'm left thinking that Disney will just use their stock footage of the 1989 film and will haphazardly use that to fill in gaps which wouldn't be magical at all.  We'll have to wait and see this fall.

Imaged sourced from http://disney.wikia.com

Starbucks Mermaid Frappuccino

Bummed that the Unicorn Frappuccino is now just a mythical memory?  Well, now you can make a bigger splash with your drink of choice.  A Starbucks barista has created a Mermaid Frappuccino to fill the hole in your unicorn missing heart.  Although this new fantastical ice cold drink is not on the menu, you can certainly check with your local Starbucks store to see if they can whip it up for you.  You can find the details of just what is in this concoction here.  I personally believe that we will be seeing an official Starbucks mermaid drink of some sort this year.  It just seems logical that with the creation of the Dragon and more recently the Unicorn, that a Mermaid drink is not far behind.  In the meantime, enjoy the unofficial Mermaid Frappuccino!

Picture sourced from fortune.com

Mermaid kicks!

Need some new kicks but want some that reflect your undying mermaid devotion?  Well, you are in luck!  I happened upon a couple of different styles the other day that may pique your interest.  First up is a nice pastel pair with a slight glittery sheen from Vans.  These are exclusive to Journey’s and shii by Journey’s, and they are available in women’s, youth, and toddler sizes!  I’ve only linked to the women’s size but you can find the others easily on Journey’s website.

Mermaid Glitter Skate Shoe

Image sourced from Journeys website

Next up are a few different styles offered by Sperry from flip flop, to sneaker, to espadrilles.  They have four different choices with the same pattern featured.  I'm so tempted to get a pair of the sneakers.

Laurel Reef Espadrille

Seacoast Mermaid Sneaker

Seacoast Isle Sneaker

Seabrook Surf flip flop

All above images were sourced from Sperry's website.

Always on the look out for mermaid merchandise or the latest mermaid news?  Why not follow me by signing up with your email to the right so you won't miss a post?  Thanks for reading!

MerMay 2017 is here! Get out your art supplies.

MerMay is here!  I thought I would share some information with you all about MerMay in case you haven’t heard of it before.  It was started last year by artist Tom Bancroft, an animator that worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation on movies such as Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, to name two.  You can check his webpage out here.  He came up with the idea of a drawing challenge for all 31 days of the month of May, and the subject of this challenge was mermaids.  Each day has a specific theme that artists are presented with, and the finished product is encouraged to be shared online with the tag #MerMay. Here is this year’s prompt list.

List found on Tom Bancroft's webpage.

Tom instituted this on Instagram, but posting are not confined to any one platform.  You can find posting for MerMay on Tumblr, DeviantArt, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest (of course Pinterest, everything is on there).  I encourage you to search for the tag MerMay on your favorite platform; there are some really talented people out there.  As a special project for MerMay, Tom has created an original character with an original story called The Mermaid Who Wanted to Fly that he will be posting on Instagram.  You can find the link to it here.

Picture sourced from Tom Bancroft's webpage

I’m not talented in drawing by any means, so I just enjoy perusing around looking at all the wonderful art.  I can literally do that for hours and not get bored.  My favorite platform of choice these days is Tumblr, and I try to re blog work from other artists there everyday.  If you would like to follow me or just check out what pieces I've re blogged, here’s the link.

Just for laughs, I'll show you the extent of my artistic drawing abilities. :-P

If you have drawn something and would like to share, please comment or reach out to me through email!  As always, thanks for reading.

Target those mermaids!

Looking for mermaid merchandise for your little ones?  Well, Target is the place to find all kinds of things from toys to decor that I’m sure any mermaid fans will just love.  Let’s get to it!

As soon as I walked in the store they had these little cuties in what I'll call the "value section".  For those of you that may not be familiar, this sections is generally at the entrance to the Target stores and all the items are between $1 to $5 or so. I apologize for the quality of some of these pictures as I was in a little bit of a hurry.

Zippered clear bag

Kid sized drawstring backpack bag

Mermaid pennant

Swim tail also known as a monofin

Kid sized baseball style hat

Flying disk toy

 

Beachball

Bubble wand

I found these cute party invitations over in the stationary section.

The plush doll and the sheets are both from the kids bedding aisle .

Need a mermaid shower curtain?  You can find this in the bathroom decor section.

And lastly, this framed string art is located in the kid's wall decor section.

I have a hunch that Target will have more mermaid related items as we make our way from spring to the summer season so keep an eye out for them.

Mermaid gardens

I'm sure many of you have seen something about fairy gardens in the past around the internet or even in your local craft store.  The little gardens that you create yourself by using typically small plants, rocks, terracotta pots, tiny figures of fairy folk and the various items they would need to tend their little patches of heaven... sound familiar?  Well, fairy gardens are so last season; mermaid gardens are in!  I read an interesting article at House Beautiful about this new coming trend.  These gardens use succulent plants as those do tend to look more like coral with their wonderful shapes and colors. I totally want to try this myself.  You can find the article from House Beautiful here. Some of the Instagram posts, showcased in the article, are quite cute.  I found the one below on Instagram as well.  If you have created one yourself, I would love to see.

Photo from Marilynrich on Instagram

 Speaking of Instagram, I actually created an account there recently.  If you would like to take a look you can find it here.  You will see some things that I've mentioned on this blog already, but there are some others that I have not so... take a look!

Webbed footed mermaid Joanna, new emoji, and an excellent babysitter making headlines.

There has been a couple of mermaids in the news recently, and I thought I would share just in case you missed them.

Mermaid Joanna

A web footed woman found wet and half naked in California claims to be a mermaid.  Police are trying to identity her.  See the story here at USA Today's website.

Picture above was pulled from USA Today's article.

Mermaid and Merman Emoji

Good news to those who cannot live without an emoji of there favorite mythical ocean humanoid; a mermaid and merman emoji will be added later this year along with 67 other new icons.  You can take a look at all of them here.

Image above was sourced from emojipedia.org.

Babysat by a mermaid.

A teen in Florida delighted a little girl by wearing her mermaid tail to her babysitting job.  I've always heard, "dress for the job you want to have".  This girl took that saying to heart and made this child's day.  You can find the article here at Elite Daily.

Pictures above were pulled from Elite Daily

Shopping mermaid decor and more

I’m always delighted to find mermaids when I go on shopping trips even if I don’t end up taking them home with me.  This past weekend, I found even more to share.  I’m surprised that I’ve had such luck fining all the things I’ve found.  Years ago, it was so difficult to find mermaid related anything unless it was Disney produced.  It just goes to show the popularity of mermaids now and how many things are being manufactured to feed that popularity.

I found this wristlet at Marshalls, and I kind of regret not buying it now.  The iridescent scales were too cute.

While waiting in the checkout line, I found a key chain and 3d birthday card.

These statue knickknacks were all from Home Goods, along with the plush doll.

I was near another Hobby Lobby and stopped in to see if there was anything different in stock from the last store.  This shelf was very nice and not heavy at all.  I even found the wooden art piece below on clearance.

In order to find most if not all of these beauties you will have to go to the brick and mortar stores as I couldn't find them being sold online.  Thanks for reading!

So many mermaids this past weekend!  I went out of a little window shopping and was pleasantly surprised at all the mermaid items that I came across while out.

First up, there was a nice little odds and ends shop in the city where I live that had a small display right as customers entered the door. Here's a couple of pics.

The store does have a website, but unfortunately it does not have any of the items up for sale there.  This could change, so if you would like to check out their website, here you go.  The good news is you can find the Mermaid Life shirt, hat, and decals on the Mermaid Life website.  They have a lot of cool merchandise there, so go take a look and make out a wishlist...I already have.

On a previous posting, I had mentioned a bomber jacket from Urban Outfitters.  I thought I would just check my local store to see if they carried it and get a look at it in person.  I was in luck that the store actually had a couple in stock.

Amazingly enough, they were marked down to $19.99 from their original $159!  If you have a Urban Outfitters around, definitely go and check their clearance rack for this one; I would so pick it up for that price.  Hopefully, all the stores adhere to the same pricing structures, and they won't be differently priced based on what they feel like marking down.

Had to share this with you all.  This shell bra is cute, but it made me giggle.  You would definitely be channeling your inner mermaid in this lingerie.  I didn't see a matching bottom, but I can imagine what it would look like.

Onto Hobby Lobby!  They had the most by far this weekend. Tricky thing is that they weren't all in one place in the store.  I found these close to the front middle section, and it was glorious.

Over near the framed art, I found these two.

Directly across from the framed art were these little metal drawer knobs.  If only I had something to use them for.

I did end up getting these two small cast iron wall hooks since they had a 50% off sale.  I couldn't get the lighting quite right for the photo, but they are much cuter in the face than the picture shows.

The pillow and the canvas wall art below I found near the outdoor decor.  The pillow is small at 8"x 8" and at $11.99 not worth it to me...but when it goes on sale...possibly. 

This canvas art was cute, but I noticed that all of them seem to be loosely attached to the wood framing.  They measured about 18 x 8 inches and were priced at $14.99 each.  The Hobby Lobby website has a lot of these items up for sale and more.  Here's the link.  Just search for mermaid to find them.

Whew!  That was a lot in one posting.  Hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading.  If you have any finds, I would love to see them!  Have a happy Monday.