Creating a Garden for Grandma

For Mother's Day I wanted to create something special for my Grandma.  She means so much to me and I wanted her to feel cherished.  I started describing to Ben my intentions of creating something small that could fit in her little apartment, but something that would be meaningful.  He came up with the great idea of making a miniature garden!  And here it is!

I grew up every summer helping pick the green beans in my grandparents garden, mmm they were so good right off the vine!  Grandma always did such a great job tending the vegetable garden and her lovely flowers.  And to continue on the tradition as a house warming gift her and my Grandpa gave us an avocado tree for our garden!  That's why giving her a miniature garden seemed like the perfect idea!  Here we are together on Easter, I'm holding my cousin's sweet baby girl who loves visiting her Great Grandma.

The supplies we gathered for this project were: a small basket, styrofoam, faux flowers (the smaller the better), and accessories such as the miniature gnome and butterflies.  Not pictured is the reindeer moss, we thought we had already but couldn't find so had to go on an emergency run to the store for.  We also grabbed some coffee stir sticks that Ben turned into a picked fence.

I began by shaping my styrofoam block to fit the basket, it was super easy to cut with a kitchen knife.

It ended up looking like a trapezoid.

Snug as a bug on a rug!  (until you shake the rug, that is)

I then used wire cutters to trim all the flowers and make them into individual stocks that were a lot shorter.

I began poking the flowers in, making sure to space them out evenly.  Some of them were easy to poke into the styrofoam, while others that bent easily needed a little pre-drilling with a toothpick.  

In the meantime Ben began cutting the coffee stir sticks to make the little picket fence.  He cut the tops on the angle and the bottoms straight.

Then he super-glued the pieces onto longer straight pieces.

He left the pieces on both ends extra long so that they could be shoved into the styrofoam.

It looked quite cute in its natural wood state but we decided to go for the full effect and paint it white.

He also cut some little pieces and glued them together to make a sign.  With a felt tipped marker he wrote Grandma's Garden.

After all the flowers were pushed in I added my little gnome friend.

Next up was the ground covering i.e. the reindeer moss.

It looked much better with all the foam covered up!

And here is is all done, ta-da!

The different layers really add nice depth to this and make it fun when you discover new pieces hiding!

My grandma loved her gift and I loved being able to make her feel special!  Have you handmade any special gifts for someone?  I'd love to hear what you're crafting and gifting!