Dreaming of Spring: Twig & Florals Friendship Garland
Incorporate nature into this Spring-y garland!
you'll need Materials
Letters
- Twigs
- Craft wire
- Scissors
- Embroidery floss
Coffee Filter Flowers
- Coffee filters
- Water
- Food colouring
- Cooling racks
- Containers
- Scissors
- Craft tray
- Smock
Putting it Together
- Beads (you could use un-finished, paint them or purchase pre-painted beads)
- Cord
- Scissors
- Chenille sticks
Directions
- Go out into nature with an adult and collect twigs.
- Arrange your twigs into letters. You may need an adult to help you to break them into pieces.
- Overlap the parts where the segments of the letters of the letters join. Wrap them with craft wire. You may need an adult to help you cut it.
- Wrap over the craft wire with embroidery floss if you like for a finished look. (This is a great way to practise tying knots!)
Coffee Filter Flowers
For Easter we made a garland with dyed coffee filters (please see the process below) and we wanted to transform the extras into flowers to decorate this garland.
- First we created a dye bath with water and food colouring- the more colouring you add, the more vibrant your filters will be.
- Dip the edges of your filters and spread them out to dry on your cooling rack. If they are quite saturated, then place a plastic tray underneath to catch any potential drips.
- Allow to dry overnight.
- For this garland, we then folded our dried coffee filters in half. For the leaves we went with 2 layered on top of each other. We cut out leaf shapes on the edges.
- We did the same with the flowers but used 3-5 filters and cut the edges into a more petal shape.
- We then put the petals inside of the leaves and made a small snip on the opposite (flat) side for inserting the stem.
- Gently put the chenille stick through the green leaf filters, then the flower filters and added a bead at the end to make the flower centre, tying a knot at the end. Before we added the flowers to the garland we also found it helpful to put a small bead on the underside (where the flower meets the stem) to hold it all in place.
Putting it all together:
- With your cord, knot your letters and flowers on, creating your garland. We also added a few wooden beads. A needle was helpful to this process. We curled the ends of our stems with a pencil so that they looked a bit “vine-ish”.
- Gently wrap up your garland and send it to a friend!
Purpose
- Working with various materials (manipulating wire, tying knots, experimenting with dying techniques etc.)
- Getting out into nature
Safety Notes
- Use scissors and wire with care & supervision.
- Cord, twine etc. can be a strangulation hazard therefore it should be used with adult supervision and for the intended purpose.
- Beads can be a choking hazard and should be kept out of reach from those ages 0-3 years or those that tend to put things into their mouths.
- We recommend that you use a craft tray and a smock to protect your clothing and surfaces from damage from the dye.
