Is it a smushed iris or Rorschach Inkblot test?

This smushed iris turned into a Rorschach test as my 4-year-old told me that it looked like a bug. Yet another Valentine’s day craft I did with the kids to create sachets for the cousins. This craft is great because it’s so simple:

arrange flowers on muslin and tape with masking tape

flip over and smash with hammer

The flower pigments bleed through the muslin in neat patterns. I then outlined the flower pigments with a permanent marker.

Any craft that involves smashing rather than precision is fun for adults and kids alike!

The flower pounding idea comes from an HGTV quilting show I saw a few years ago. These directions explain how to prepare the fabric for dying, which I honestly didn’t do, so I’ll be interested to see if the flowers fade much.

After we made the flower prints, I cut and sewed them into heart-shape pillows before filling them with fresh-smelling herbs like parsley, rosemary, lavender and peppermint.

The local health food store has a wall o’ herbs and spices in jars so you can smell them before you buy them, and then purchase a pinch or a pound. I could spend all day opening the jars and smelling the herbs. We went through a lot of mustard seed. It doesn’t have much of a scent by my little person loved the way it looked I guess, so she wanted lots. I set her up with jars and bowls and spoons and she made a huge mess mixing herbs.

After we stuffed them with the herbs, I sewed them up and hot glued some ribbons to them. I made one for my nephew…not really a boy gift but I was at a loss. My friend Melody suggested I rename it a “stinky pillow” so boys would like it.

Finding easy-to-make crafts for boys is hard. Most books target girls and suggest you use boy-ish fabrics or colors to transform it, but they really aren’t intended for boys. Anyone know of good books out there where there is more than one craft to make for the male set?