Friendship Garden Gift

A creative gift idea- perfect for spring!

Materials

• Coffee filters
• Cupcake liners
• Sponges
• Scissors
• Dowels
• Glue
• Paint (we used acrylics & diluted liquid watercolours)
• Paint brushes

Make it Your Own

• Add any other supplies that you might like.  So for example, our daughter added wooden beads and watercolour paints as she wanted to do a wash on her flowers.

Container Supplies

• Container
• LABEL (cardstock, printer/ink)FriendshipGardenLabel
• Scissors
• Clear tape
• Ribbon

We always find these items helpful too:

• Smock
• Craft tray

Directions

• Pack your supplies into your container for a friend, adding the label with clear tape and a bit of ribbon.

Want to make the flowers yourself?

• Cut up your sponges into a variety of shapes.

• Don your smock.  Lay your coffee filters in your tray(s).  Dip your sponges into the paint or if you want a more even coverage, paint the sponges with your brushes.  Apply then to your filters and allow them to dry overnight.  One quick way to get them to dry is by placing them on cooling racks (used for baking).  Create and explore patterns.

• If you like apply a diluted watercolour wash over your filters, allowing them to dry again.  We painted some filters green for the leaves.

• To make your filters regain their shape, you can place them back in the stack and fill them with rocks or marbles. Leave overnight or for several days.

• Paint your dowels if you like, allowing them to dry overnight.  You could paint them on a tray, making sure that they don’t touch, so that they won’t stick together or you could stick them in floral foam, painting up and down.

• Glue your pieces together to form flowers (we flipped the cupcake liners inside out) and then give them to a friend!

Purpose

• Using literature as a starting point.
• Re-using household materials for creating.

Safety Notes

• We suggest that you wear a smock and use a craft tray to protect your clothing and surfaces.
• Use scissors with care and adult supervision.