Currently, Mark’s great-aunt is nearing the end of her life, and the kids always make her smile. We were heading out there for a visit to her and Mark’s grandma, her sister, and wanted to bring them something to let them know how much we care and that we’ve been praying for them both. We decided on a spiritual bouquet.
A spiritual bouquet is a collection of prayers that you promise to pray for a certain person or intention. They are a beautiful way to shower someone with love and let them know how you’re praying for them. They can mark all sorts of occasions, but are also a bit of an abstract concept. Since my kiddos are young, I tweaked the concept a little to make it more concrete and meaningful for them.
To complete this craft you need 7 items:
- felt (we used white, but any color would do)
- glue (clear, white, or glitter)
- cute buttons
- popsicle sticks (already painted green or paint them yourself)
- glass jar
- paint (acrylic, craft or enamel)
- q-tips
Making the Flowers
First, we made the flowers for our bouquet. I cut out simple flower shapes out of white felt, enough for each kid to make about 4 flowers (alter your number depending on how long your child’s attention span will be).
Next, we laid out our supplies to make the flowers. They’re pretty simple to make: a dab of glue on the top of the popsicle stick, white felt on top of that, and then another dab of glue and a cute flower button to make the center.
The kids took turns making flowers one at a time. The child making the flower got to choose what prayer we said for Aunt Jane and Grandma M while the flower was being made, and we all prayed together. This slowed down the frenetic pace at which G usually crafts and made it more meaningful for the kids. One by one, their bouquet came to life.
Making the Vase
The next step was making the vases, which can be done while the flowers dry or at a separate time. For this we did a kid-friendly variant of this craft and used glass jars from Kroger kalamata olives. They just happen to be a favorite item around here and come in a jar perfectly suited for small flowers (or colored pencils, which is why I usually save them). The results varied between Will and G, with his dots being more smudges, and hers meticulously placed, but they both came out beautifully.
Once the two parts of the craft were finished, we put them together, and voila! We had beautiful spiritual bouquets, handmade with love.
Linking up with Kelly this week, so head on over and check out the other 7 Quick Takes
Yay kalamata olive lovers!
My kids, especially my son, go nuts for them!