Dried Flower Craft for Kids

I was looking for an activity to do with a group of 5 year olds on the day it was my turn to be the host – as part of a group of mothers helping each other take care of the children during summer vacation (it's two months long).


After seeing a group of girls drool over a dried and dyed flower arrangement, I thought we could make our own. Searching the web I only found instructions for professional flower dying, using toxic dyes that require wearing protective gear. Well, that was out of the question!

I was not looking to achieve professional looking flowers and didn't mind if the colors faded after a while. I was looking for something fun and simple – and this is what I came up with:

First we went for a little walk and collected dried wild flowers and thistles.

All the spring flowers have dried up and we are surrounded by all different kinds of dried plants, dried seed pods, dried husks from wild grains and thistles - we just have to collect them!

When we were back, we diluted gouache paints in large pots and pans (When I say Gouache I mean the regular paints kids use in kindergarten – they might be called differently where you live).

I didn't measure, but in each bowl we mixed approximately two heaped table spoons of paint with five to six cups of water. (These paints stain – so we changed into work clothes first).

Then each girl dunked some dry flowers into a dye bath and swished them around a little.

We left the flowers to soak in the dye for a few minutes, letting the color absorb into the plants.

Then we set them out to dry on a piece of newspaper, each color separately, weight down with a stone.

When the flowers were dry, each girl made a bouquet from the different colors we made together.

It was interesting to see that each kind of plant reacted differently to the dying. Some hardly colored at all, and others were brightly colored. Generally speaking, fluffy and sticky flowers pods such as clover flowers, rabbit tail and sage retained more color and dyed stronger. Some plants only caught a hint of color but were still beautiful.
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This lovely post was written Dria Peterson who lives and creates Waldorf style toys in Israel.