3D Paint Mason Jar Vase

 We used recycled pickle jars and some puffy paint to make these great little vases for Mother's day.

 Pretty easy to do, but I have a full tutorial on this over at Kiwi Crate. These would be great to make your own centerpieces for a party. We love DIY party decor!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you amazing, hard-working, beautiful, loving, inspiring, brilliant and sleep lacking mama's out there! I wish you a day of rest, love and peace.
xo
green owl mama

Chocolate Bowl for Mother's Day

 Miss Fancy Pants was in absolute heaven when I announced we'd be making chocolate bowls! How perfect would these be for Mother's Day and you can fill them with all sorts of sweet treats. We did fresh berries, but you could even make a vanilla custard or ice cream to go inside! Yum!

 We blew our balloon up to a small size and gave it a good washing.

 Next I melted the chocolate and stirred it until it cooled a bit (not to pop the balloon.)

 She dipped her balloon right into the chocolate and placed it on wax paper.

 Into the freezer it goes. This was the hard part. I had to stand freezer guard while impatient wee ones tried to peek.

 We popped our balloon and pulled it out to reveal our beautiful chocolate bowl. The kids thought this was pretty cool.

 Are these fancy or what!? Yet, so easy to make. For more details check out my full tutorial over on Kiwi Crate.

Flowers, flowers and more flowers!

Yesterday the kids and I spent the day at the Tulip Festival. It was breathtakingly beautiful. It's one of those places you wish you could take everyone you know because a picture can never do such beauty justice. It was a wonderful day, even at the moment Grayson completely lost it over Emma asking if he needed help picking the one and only yellow tulip that he wanted to bring home. Yep, he threw himself down in the middle of the yellow and orange tulip rows and screamed and kicked and screamed some more, but I gotta say a two-year old melt down is much more tolerable when spent in the middle of this. 

He recuperated pretty well and decided on a purple tulip to take home. Good choice, Grayson! They were my favorite. With his new favorite tulip in hand and a ride on the cow train we were back to blissful peace out at the Tulip Festival. 

With flowers on the mind I thought I would share some wonderful flower crafts we have been enjoying this spring.

 Starting with Egg Carton Tulips seems appropriate! Isn't it amazing what you can do with an egg carton. They must be one of our most used recycled art good. I can never bare to toss them into the recycling bin.

 With a pipe cleaner stem and a button center these sweet flowers came together pretty nicely.

We used watercolor to add some color, but tempura paints would probably give you a better "pop" of color on your tulips. 

 Speaking of egg carton awesomeness, check out our Egg Carton Spring Wreath!

We started out with a cardboard ring and added egg carton flowers all around it. I just love the way it came out.

 Last summer when I brought home these beautiful white hydrangeas from the store Emma asked if the flower fairies had missed this batch when out adding color to flowers everywhere. I told her they must have and this sparked a new craft in our house and a very important job for her.

Eager to help the fairies out Emma painted each petal of our white hydrangeas with watercolors. Painted Hydrangeas is a new favorite in our house.

 Paper Towel Flowers are pretty fun to make by painting with watercolors right on a paper towel. The colors spread and blend to make a really beautiful creation.

With a clothespin these colorful towels become a sweet little flower perfect for adding on top of a gift.

 More hydrangeas! These Coffee Filter Hydrangeas are so beautiful and easy to make.

OK, a pattern is happening here. I guess when flower crafting we tend to pull the watercolors out. Interesting. A pipe cleaner stem was added to these to make a sweet little bouquet.

 We started our Newspaper Flowers out by painting sheets of newspaper with colored glue. When the sheets dried they were easy to cut into petals and put together to create these fun flowers.

I love that you can still read them! Very cool looking flower.

 This was an Emma idea inspired by her love of creating with q-tips. What I loved about it is that it became a really great fine motor skills activity for Grayson and they could enjoy this one together.

For these Q-tip Flowers I helped by cutting the q-tips in half and they stuck them into different sized styro balls. With a little paint (yes, watercolors!) and a pipe cleaner they became flowers. Very unique flowers, if I do say so.

 Magical Dandelions sprouted up in our yard recently and what a pleasant surprise they were! You can't go wrong with wishes and glitter!

Rose Print Napkins--for Mother's Day

 As summer is approaching I will be slowing down on my little happy place I like to call Green Owl Art. We will still be creating art and memories and I will try and share as much as I can, but sometimes you need to just un-plug!
With that said I am beginning the first Mother's day homemade gift today. I have quite a few to share, maybe I will do one big post if I don't get a chance to share them all.

 We made these super simple and super sweet, rose print cloth napkins with...celery! Very cool through the eyes of a five and two-year-old. They also snacked on (you guessed it) celery, while we created. Healthy snack and fun art...yippee!!

 We used fabric paint to stamp right on some basic cloth napkins. So easy!

A few additions with some green puffy paint and we had a pretty great gift...for me! Yes, she gave them to her dear mama, what a sweetie! Maybe we will make a few more for the dear Grandma's in our life, too.
I shared this over at Kiwi Crate, you check out more details there.