Spring Craft Activity For Kids (and it's recycling too!)

I'm helping with an activity for children in my church congregation tomorrow, and this is the craft project we're doing. 

my sample flowers on the left, original demo flowers on the right

I enjoyed making the sample flowers quite a lot.  Maybe you'd like to make some too.  (they're really easy).

I used styrofoam egg cartons because that's what was available, but the original instructions call for cardboard ones (because the cardboard can be painted to make the flowers even more colorful) (though, it turns out you can use crayons to color the styrofoam a little).

The steps are as follows:
1. Cut up an egg carton (each egg "cup" equals one flower).
2. Cut out a 4inch-ish square of tissue paper (I used three different colors of tissue paper for each "flower").
3. Stick the tissue paper into the egg carton in the arrangement you like, then poke a hole through the tissue paper and the bottom of the egg cup.
4. Put a pipe cleaner through the hole and make a loop on the tissue paper side so that it won't slip out.
5. Wrangle with the pipe cleaner a little till it holds the flower head on the way you want it to.
6. Cut a leaf shape out of green paper, punch a hole in it and thread it onto the pipe cleaner.  (I mushed the pipe cleaner around the hole so that the leaf wouldn't slide up and down).

THE END!

Easy, cheap and fun to make.  The box they're in is just a shoe box covered in wrapping paper.  And by tomorrow afternoon, the box will be full of flowers!  No watering required.

P.S. If you're lucky, my next post won't have anything to do with flowers or gardening.