We finished off a botany study with two lovely nature crafts. They were so easy that even my two year old could join in, so I thought that I would share them with you. It’s also worth mentioning that they are a lot of fun for adults too!
The first is printing onto fabric with flowers. You won’t need any fancy equipment for this, just a piece of plain fabric, some flowers (we used flowers from our garden) and a hammer. Oh, and something to protect your surfaces.
I sent Lark (10yrs) and Wren (2yrs) out into our garden to collect flowers that they liked. We have a lot of rose and fuchsia and then the rest of our land is rather wild, so we have a lot of wild flowers.
When they came back, we removed any big stalks. We used cutting mats and thick cardboard to protect the table and laid out a piece of scrap fabric for each of them.
Then the fun begins.
Take some time to lay out the flowers onto half of the fabric. Then fold the other half over on top of the flowers. Be a bit careful here, so that you don’t move all of the carefully placed petals. Then all that you need to do is tap with a hammer all over the fabric. This is why you need to protect your table! It is a great craft for building confidence using a hammer, although there didn’t seem to be any lack of confidence with my two and they were reluctant to stop the bashing.
Although you will see the pigment from the flowers starting to show through the fabric, it is a good idea to have a careful peep, to check if any areas need a bit more bashing.
When you’re happy that you have got as much colour out of the flowers as you can, unfold the fabric and carefully remove all of the flowers. Some of them will be a bit stuck, but they will peel or rub off.
The only thing left to do, is to decide what you are going to use your fabric for.
My girls decided to make theirs into mini bunting to hang around the fireplace in their bedroom.
For the second easy, nature craft you will need – some air dry clay, a rolling pin, optional cookie cutters and some leaves, grasses etc.
Again, I sent Lark and Wren out into our wild garden to collect anything that they thought might look nice. They came back with a selection of wild grasses, a few leaves and some horsetails.
We rolled the clay out nice and flat, (about 8mm thick) and used a large round cookie cutter, to cut out four discs.
They had two each and they put a small selection of the plants that they had gathered onto each disc. We put a piece of thin card on top and then went over it with the rolling pin.
Don’t push too hard with the pin at this point or you will risk distorting the shape of the disc.
When you remove the card and the plants, you will find a beautiful print of your plants in the clay.
We wanted to be able to hang ours up on the wall so we used a reusable straw to make holes in the discs for cord. If you blow hard on the other end of the straw the little clay pellet will come out.
We left them to dry in the airing cupboard for a few days and then painted them.
I used some natural cordage made from plants in our garden to string them together and both of my girls were really pleased with their new room decorations. It’s so nice for children to make their own works of art to decorate their spaces.
I hope you have as much fun with these simple crafts as we did!
