Use nature to display nature when your child makes a pretty vine vase, perfect for holding a floral bouquet!
What You Need:
- Clean glass jar or bottle
- Hot glue gun
- Several lengths of vine
- Scissors
- Pebbles, shells, nature stickers, fabric leaves; acrylic finish
What You Do:
- Help your child collect vines from a yard or garden shop. Honeysuckle, ivy, or grape vines would work. If you can’t find vines, other flexible plant lengths such as reeds, flower stems, or straw could be used.
- Your child can use scissors to cut some leaves off of vines, although she may want to leave a few leaves for decoration purposes.
- Heat the hot glue gun and help your child put glue around the jar closest to the bottom edge. (You may wish to turn the jar upside down to more easily reach that side.) Do one circle of glue around the jar. Help her start the vine near the bottom and wrap the vine around the jar to attach it to the glued surface. Be careful pressing the vine to glue as the glue is hot; she could use a stick or pencil end to press the vine to the hot glue.
- Keep gluing and wrapping vine onto glue all the way to the jar top, turning the jar right side up as you start to work near that end.
- Near the top end of the jar, she may wish to glue a ring of pebbles, shells, or some other pretty decoration for her vase. The photo shows garden stickers and fabric leaves glued to the vase top.
- Be sure to give the glue enough time to dry. After it's dry, you may wish to brush on an acrylic finish to help preserve the vines on the vase.
While waiting for glue to dry, your child may wish to pick a flower bouquet. She’ll be proud to show them off in her beautiful new vase!
By Beth Levin
Beth Levin has an M.A. in Curriculum and Education from Columbia University Teachers College. She has written educational activities for Macmillan/McGraw-Hill and Renaissance Learning publishers. She has a substitute teaching credential for grades K-12 in Oregon, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.
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