MOTHER’S DAY EGG BOX FLOWERS!
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Made from an orange carton, an egg box, inner tubes and large straws.
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Yes Mother’s day has come round again and it is time to honour our mothers and show them how much we love, adore and appreciate them for just being who they are and what they do for us on a daily basis.
Mum’s are always there when we need them, to take care of us, cook, clean, shop and feed us and that sometimes be taken for granted, but there is more….
A listening ear, a carer, supporter, a keen helper and how about home learning, yes a teacher! and sometimes when things get rough how we take it out on our mums, just because they are there and what we always get back is unconditional love.
So it’s only right that we should celebrate and show our mums how amazing they are no matter how small our expressions are that displays this.
By rights we should be showing how grateful we are by giving thanks, on a regular basis, but here we have a national day for expressing this.
This brings us to what kind of messages would you write, that are dedicated to our mums. Simple is the best, two or three words, and later elaborate with more detail.
Let’s take a look at some of them.
What I have come across are simple tag lines like ‘ Best mum’, ‘The bestest mum’, ‘What a wonderful mum’, ‘mum we love you’ ‘Lovely mummy’, ‘Supermum’, and ‘adorable mummy’ and there are so much more variations of love tokens, but at the end of the day that’s entirely down to you, what you say to your mum that comes from the ♥ heart.♥
Mother’s Gifts!
What about gifts, mother’s day gifts has become an massive industry now where it could be flowers, cards, chocolates, a favourite drink, jewellery, clothing, make-up, skincare, a special perfume, vouchers, gift-cards, I mean the list is endless.
As a mummy myself, I have been the receipient of such gifts and beautiful and lovely as they are, I know can also be quite costly.
This is a chance for kids to make something for their mums, by hand which would be very precious as mums would know their child took time to make it, no matter how it looked, what it was made from, but that it was personal and made with loving care.
Just to see our kids faces when receiving their little gifts speaks a thousand words.
MY INTENTION!
So what I visualise are 3 dimensional flowers in a box, ‘Mothers’s day egg box flowers’.
MATERIALS WE SHALL USE!
We will be working with recycled material and for this project we will be using an egg box, inner tubes an orange carton and large straws.
Before we move on to our project here is a short video on how mother’s day originated, leaping back in time and see how mums were celebrated.
We nearly never had chance to celebrate mother’s day, because Anna Jarvis ( the founder of Mother’s dayin the US) did not approve of people buying cards and gifts for mothers, instead she felt it more appropriate to write letters and offer flowers that have true meaning and not having it turned into something so cosmopolitan and because of this, she tried to petition against this for a very long time.
Unfortunately she lost her fight to ban this kind of celebration and until this day we still celebrate mothering Sunday, although on different dates around the world.
In the United States it’s celebrated the second Sunday in May, this year it will be 9th May 2021. Other countries including some european countries are, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Japan, Philippines, South Africa, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Switchland, Belgium and Turkey.
In the United Kingdom it falls the fourth Sunday of Lent. This year it will be 14th March 2021.
As the dates of Lent and Easter change each year based on the lunar calendar, the date of Mother’s day changes too.
SHALL WE BEGIN!
RESOURCES.
1 egg box.
1 juice or milk carton.
3 or 4 tubes small and large. White paper.
3 large straws. Blu tack
A selection of acrylic paints. ( White, orange, blue, make green yellow)
Glue gun/glue stick.
Large/small scissors. Stanley knife.
Brushes. Black/red felt tip pens/pencil.
HOW TO MAKE!
There are 4 parts to this project, the box (carton) the flowers (egg box) flowing leaves (tubes) and the stems (straws).
So I will show stage by stage.
TIPS!
- You can decorate the box with patterns or more wording.
- Some cartons like the soya, oat or almond type are lined in silver which have a nicer finish.
- When cutting the carton it gets weak as you rotate it so, you need to hold it fast.
- I found blu tack a useful tool to help stand the straws in for painting.
- The large egg box trays that don’t have lids have more defined egg cups and are easier to cut out, although you can still manage to remove decent round shapes from the newer style egg boxes.
- I found tearing out the egg cup, was a bit more easier to handle, rather than try to cut it with a pair of scissors.
- The egg box itself is not an easy material to paint on, so you may need to apply paint a few times to get a good colour, it seems to repel paint, but keep going with it.
- Alternatively you can use canned spray paint, like silver, bronze or gold.
- When using hot wax to glue, you may need to hold the flowers or curly leaves in place until they stick fast and to be careful as glue is quite hot. ( adults working with children may need to oversee this.)
- Painting the leaves can get quite messy, as you have to stretch each leaf to allow it to be painted from top to bottom, so you may want to wear disposable gloves, or just enjoy with your kids getting mucky and very colourful.
- As an option you might like to dab a bit of glitter around the edges of the flowers, just paint a line of PVA glue and sprinkle some glitter on to it.
- When it is time to add your message, first practice writing on a seperate piece of paper, rather than write directly on to the box, as you may mess it up. that way you can change your mind as many times as possible.
- A final thought, you may like to lightly spray the floral arrangement with a nice scent giving the gift box a nice aroma.
- How about popping in some of mums favourite chocolates, as a surprise, the wrapped up ones of course.
TO CONCLUDE!
This is a good way to use up your recycled materials. I have shown you how to use in a creative way cartons, egg boxes, straws and inner tubes, 4 different mediums to work with and make a super mother’s day gift.
A mother’s day egg box gift or flowers is an interesting way to pull together and design quite an eye catching result.
When kids are working with these materials. you may need to step in especially with the cutting and using a hot wax glue gun, but the results can be quite satisfying.
All you need is a lot of patences and allowing time for drying before you stick all layers together.
We all know the top gift for a mothers day would be a bunch of flowers, beautiful that may be, but eventually perish, so making flowers like this would be lasting and can be a lovely keepsake.
So start looking at your recycled materials and be creative, it will be appreciate much more by your mum in the long run!
Let’s work together and follow my simple step by step guide on how to make your mum ‘mother’s day egg box flowers!
Hi Julia,
how beautiful artical! You are so creative and talented! The idea for the box is phenomenal. It is easy to make and leaves a much bigger impression than a purchased gift. I think that what is made by hand from the heart has a greater effect on a loved one. It shows how much person is loved and special. Especially when it comes to the mother. We all love original gifts and are a little fed up with the usual gifts. I often give loved ones something I have done with my own hands. Most often it is a letter full of love or e.g. picture frame with shells. Your idea is very original and lovely that I will definitely make something like this for Mother’s Day. I like how you got the idea to make a flower out of straw and cardboard. It’s beautiful! A letter or chocolates can be placed in that box. Also, I like that these are all materials that can be reused. By the way, the whole site and the idea itself is wonderful and I will come more often to see which next idea you suggest to us.
Keep doing such a wonderful job!
Greetings and all the best,
Danijela
Thank so much Danijela for enjoying the article and also the concept behind the project. This is just one way to make a gift like this, of course you can adjust it
by doing your own thing and it would come from the heart. I have sack loads of junk (throw outs) which I have in storage, as my main theme of my website is about
re-using, recycling or upcycling what someone might call rubbiah, into some fun kids crafts and all done by hand!
I also appreciate your praises and please do dive in now and again as my aim is to prompt, inspire, or give you some simple ideas in kids crafts.
So, if you ever get a chance to work with kids, check out your junk, gather your resources and get cracking and have lots of fun in the process!
Let’s bring back to life our rubbish into something cool!
Julia.