Mother's Day Fun

It's almost time for Mother's Day which means making crafts for moms and Grandmothers. Mother's Day began in the United States in 1908 by Anna Jarvis as a memorial for her mother. She believed a day for mothers should be celebrated because she believed a mother is "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world." By 1911, all the states were celebrating this special day. By the 1920's, Anna Jarvis began to boycott this holiday as it had become too commercialized. She believed people should write hand written notes and make homemade gifts instead of purchasing gifts and cards so today we are making some gifts instead of buying them to honor the spirit of this special day.

We decided to make a picture on canvas using glue to repel color and crystal flowers.

We began by doing a glue on Canvas Craft.

You'll need:

Elmers White Glue

Watercolors

Brushes

Canvas

Fi decided that she'd like it to be a flower scene so we drew a picture using glue.

Once it dried she used watercolors to paint it.

Super cute and easy peasy!

Next we moved onto making Crystal Flowers.

You'll need:

Pipe cleaners in assorted colors

Borax- 9 tbsp

Jar

Boiling water

String

Popsicle stick

Fi will walk you through the process below.

1. Cut green pipe cleaner into 3 pieces and then choose three other color of pipe cleaner to be the "flower". Attach a "flower" to the green pipe cleaner by twisting them together and then winding the rest around your finger to create the flower. Fi shows you how in the video above.

2. Do all three flowers and then out them together and twist the ends together. Take another pipe cleaner and cut it into two parts and use one half to make a leaf and attach to the flower bundle.

3.Tie string to the stem end and then tie the other end of the string to a popsicle stick.

4. Boil water (adult supervision required) and add 9 tbsp of borax using a 1:1 ratio with 1 tbsp to one cup of water.

5. Add to glass jar or cup (Glass works better than plastic for the formation of crystals) and stir until all borax is dissolved.

6. Lower flowers in using popsicle stick to dangle it in water. Make sure to test length of string beforehand as you don't want flowers to touch the bottom or sides. Also test out flowers width compared to lid opening as flowers will not have flexibility once crystals have been formed and you won't want to damage crystals trying to lift it back out.

7. Leave flowers in solution for 24 hours while checking it every few hours to watch the formation of crystals.You'll need to put in a spot where it will be left untouched.

8. Observe how crystals are forming every few hours. We checked back after 3 1/2 hours and saw the crystals already forming and got very excited!

9. After 24 hours have passed, gently lift crystal flowers out and let them dry on a paper towel for an hour.

10. Give super cool gift to your Mom or Grandmom!

These projects were both very easy and very entertaining for my kiddo which is the perfect mix!