6 Creative Garden Crafts Your Kids Will Love!

Kids in the garden

Looking for fun and easy garden crafts for kids? Kids of all ages can enjoy making gifts and doing activities that center around a garden theme. These inexpensive ideas are a creative way to bring the fun of gardening inside.

leaf art

6 Fun & Easy Garden Crafts for Kids

grass head getting scissor trim

Grass Pets

Have you ever had a chia pet? It’s easy to make and grow your own “chia” or grass pet! Within a week, you will have sprouting “hair” on your pet. As it grows, you can give it a haircut.

What you need:

  • Nylon stocking
  • Potting soil
  • Grass seed 
  • Plastic container
  • Googly eyes
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Glue
  • Waterproof markers
  • Water

How to make it:

  1. Cut a piece of nylon stocking, including the toe.
  2. Place grass seed into the stocking.
  3. Fill with potting soil.
  4. Tie shut or use pipe cleaners.
  5. Glue googly eyes on and draw a mouth with waterproof markers
  6. Use pipe cleaners to make sections for a caterpillar or another animal.
  7. Pour water into the bottom of the container.
  8. Place the grass pet in the container making sure it can soak up the water.
  9. Keep it watered daily and watch your pet grow “fur”!
pressing rosemary into dough

Garden Impressions

Kids can gather leaves and flowers from your garden to make a beautiful piece of artwork. Even toddlers will be entertained by this simple project.

What you need:

  • Playdough or salt dough
  • Cookie cutters
  • Leaves
  • Flowers
  • Sticks

How to make it:

  1. Roll out and cut dough into shapes.
  2. Press flowers, leaves, and sticks into the dough. You can leave them there and let the dough dry or remove them and leave the impression.
  3. Make a small hole in the dough while still wet if you would like to make it into an ornament. Once dry, you can slip a ribbon or twine through the hole to hang it.

For a homemade version that can dry well, use this recipe:

Homemade Salt Dough Recipe

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup salt
  • 1/2 cup water

 

  1. Mix the flour and salt.
  2. Slowly add water while kneading it together until it makes a dough that can be molded.
  3. To dry quickly, place dough in the oven at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes or until dry. (Drying time depends on the thickness of the dough.)
making potato stamps of tree

Potato Stamps

Who says you have to go to the store for beautiful wrapping paper or cards? Instead, create your own stamps with potatoes and let your creative kids get to work making beautiful paper.

What you need:

  • Potatoes cut in half
  • Kitchen knife
  • Pencil
  • Cookie cutters
  • Paint
  • Paper

How to make it:

  1. Cookie-cutter method: Push cookie cutter into a potato and then carefully cut away the potato around it. You will have a raised section in the shape of the cookie cutter.
  2. Pencil method: Draw a shape into a potato. Cut around the outline, leaving raised area for stamping. Apply paint with a brush or dip potato into the paint on a paper plate. Press potato stamp onto paper. Use long sheets of rolled paper to make wrapping paper. Use heavy craft paper to make cards.
pressed flowers in book

Pressed Flower Art Bookmarks

Pressed flowers have been used for ages to preserve garden blooms because it’s so fun and easy to do. Kids of any age can learn to press flowers and create beautiful gifts to share.

What you need:

  • Flowers and leaves (flatter flowers work best, or take off petals). Try Morning Glory, Nasturtium, Poppies, or Cosmos.
  • Heavy book
  • A heavy object (dumbbells or garden brick)
  • Absorbent paper
  • Craft Paper
  • A picture frame for an art collage, sticky contact paper, or packing tape for a bookmark.

How to make it:

  1. Pace flowers between two sheets of absorbent paper.
  2. Place paper and flowers between pages of a heavy book or in a book with a heavy object on top. 
  3. Check flowers after a few days. When they are dry, place flowers on craft paper. Frame your artwork, or roll a strip of packing tape or contact paper over the flowers to make a bookmark.

 

Note: The oils and liquids from the plants will soak through. Don’t use books that you care about getting soiled. You can use sketchbooks and shut them tight with rubber bands, and place a heavy brick on top.

 

Other fun things to do with pressed flowers: Make a border around photos in glass frames. Apply to school notebooks. Make sun catchers by using only contact paper or clear packing tape over the flowers for a see-through effect.

paper with seeds in it

Plantable Seed Paper

Do your own recycling and turn paper into a surprising craft that will grow in the garden. Seed paper is a fun way to show how paper can be recycled while creating a gift to share.

What you need:

How to make it:

  1. Tear paper into small pieces. Cover with water and let sit overnight.
  2. Place paper mixture in blender and blend up paper until smooth.
  3. Stir in seeds with a spoon.
  4. Strain through cheesecloth or strainer.
  5. Pour pulp onto a flat surface and press out the excess water.
  6. While the pulp is wet, you can press it into simple shapes.
  7. Let seed pulp dry completely.

 

Plantable seed paper can be given as a gift with instructions on how to plant it.

To plant seed paper, place it on top of soil. Lightly cover with soil. Water and keep moist. Watch for seeds to sprout and continue watering as needed.

taking a picture of flowers with phone

Garden Matching Game

What you need:

  • Leaves
  • Flowers
  • Vegetables

How to make it:

  1. Take a leaf from each plant in your garden, along with its matching flower or vegetable.
  2. Place leaves on one side of the table and flowers/vegetables on the other.
  3. See if you can identify which is a match. No peaking outside!
  4. For a year-round game, take close-up pictures of leaves and flowers. Print pictures and make them into cards. Use the picture cards to play a garden-matching game all winter long.

This is just the beginning of fun garden crafts you can make with kids! The garden can be an inspiration to all ages. Let kids explore nature and use their creativity to make all kinds of art. 

pressed leaf art

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