#4192. Flower pot pencil holder craft. Can be Mother's Day gift.

other, level: all
Posted Sat May 3 10:21:02 PDT 2008 by Michele LA (Michele LA).

Posted on the Teacher Chatboard by Michele LA on 5/03/08

This is what we've made every year for the past 4 years. It's a big hit.

Flower pot pencil/pen holder: 3 or 4 inch clay pot, colored tissue paper cut into irregular pieces of about 1 inch or so, Mod Podge (decopodge glaze), pinto beans, stick type ink pen, artificial flower, green masking tape, 1/2 inch paint brush.

Have the kids paint the outside of the pot with the decopodge glaze and quickly stick the pieces of tissue paper to the pot. Have them cover the pot completely, encouraging them to leave no uncovered spots and overlapping the tissue paper.

Once the pot is completely covered and the glaze has dried, students or teacher can brush glaze over the tissue paper. This creates a nice shiny finish and has sort of a stained glass look. It dries in just a few hours.

For the pens, cut the flower stem to a length that nearly matches the length of the pen. Using the green tape, attach the flower to the pen with blossom at the opposite end of the nib (writing end) of the pen so that when the pen is in the holder the flower sticks out.

Fill the pot with pinto beans to simulate soil and to stablize the pen flower. Voila! A lovely pen/pencil holder for mom to put on her desk or near the phone at home. An added bonus is that
most of the work is actually done by the kids. I teach pre-k so they aren't able to do the pens but they do the pots with supervision.