Tutorial - An Indoor Garden

~by Kendal

Good morning lovely people – I (Kendal) am very happy to be doing the first of our Wednesday Crafty Tutorials, where every week we hope to talk about something fun, creative and easy to do with your Littles!

Today, I will be talking about how to make your own Indoor Garden. Now, I know as much about gardening as Gina Ford does about parenting, but I love this activity because it is so very easy, needs little in way of resources and the possibilities are endless! Plus, it is a brilliant activity to do with children of any age. I do it with my own Little who is nearly two, and our Indoor Garden lives on our Seasons Table at all times!

 Things you need:

- Cardboard Container.  (Anything at all – we forage through the recycling bin! Recycling/upcycling cardboard is part of the fun of this activity for us)

-Playdough, soil or sand 

A collection of ‘treasures’ found on a walk, and in your home

And that's it!

How To:

First off, make some playdough if you are so inclined! (Recipe at end of post) This is the first time we have made our own playdough and it is not only very easy, it is also a funny and messy way to get my wee one to ‘help’

Throw all the ingredients together, mix them up then heat over a low heat, stirring continuously. The mixture will go very lumpy and start to solidify, which is when you add any colouring you may want (we used green food colouring)

Once it starts to come away from the edge of the pan, it is ready, so switch off heat and let it cool…and perhaps tidy too.

Once cooled, you and your Littles just have to give it a good kneading to get rid of lumps and hey presto! Awesome playdough! What’s more, if kept in an airtight container it can last for months in the fridge!

Next, prepare your box. This time round we decided to paint it a little first.           

As usual this involved lots of finger pointing and an elaborate story from Lady A.

Now, for the treasue hunt! We went walking in our local park, Westbank Park, to find a selection of ‘treasures’…twigs, flowers, pine cones, stones….

I love going on Treasure Hunts because every walk yields such different results depending on where we go and what season we’re in.

With our playdough and painted box ready, we did a final treasure hunt in our home for anything we could find, which usually means shells, wool or scrap fabric, since there’s always so much lying around. Then, we covered the bottom of the container in a thick layer of playdough and got to assembling our garden.

We used some blue fabric for a stream and shells around the edge to 'hedge' the garden in. Then, we planted some trees and flowers, some pine cones…and played around with it a little before Ava declared it ‘all done’ and trotted off to our Seasons Table where it now lives

Happy gardening!

***

Playdough Ingredients - Original Recipe Here

1 Cup Flour

1 Cup Water

2 Tsp Cream of Tartar

1/3 Cup Salt

1 Tblsp Veg Oil

Food Colouring/Essential Oils