Small Hands Creating Hope: A Spring Bouquet

This is a fun and easy project that would be perfect for a birthday, teacher gift, or as a child made gift for a family member. We made ours as a center piece for a birthday party for my mother in law and I think they look perfect.

Start by taking plain Styrofoam cups. Cut the cup in to strips, you can see that we tried a few different shapes. Heat your oven to 350 and place your cups in 1 at a time. I don't know why, but it just seems to melt better that way. Styrofoam is a lightweight plastic, so when placed in the heat the cups will begin to melt.

Don't walk away, the cups will begin to melt almost immediately. If you have a window in your oven it is a lot of fun to press your face up to the glass and watch. When you pull the cups out you will have a few seconds to try and mold it before it cools again, but for the most part the cups just sort of curl up on themselves. The cups aren't hot so don't be afraid!


Once you have all of your "flowers" ready, it's time to paint. We used tempera paint and it worked great.

Once the paint is dry, use barbeque skewers to thread through your cups, then fill the bottom of your cup with glue and pack in your pom poms. When your glue is dried you are ready to display your flowers. We bunched ours up with fresh herbs from the garden.

This project has been included as part of the Small Hands Creating Hope fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. This project is one of many from a team of talented bloggers that will appear in an ebook which you can receive when you donate $15 dollars or more to the America Cancer Society.

If you donate but do not receive an email for any reason, or if you have trouble with the download, email smallhandsproject at gmail dot com.

MaryAnne at Mama Smiles compiled this book as a way of celebrating thirty years of cancer survivorship! We are hoping to raise $3000 by July 4th, and we are running a blog hop from May 14th until July 4th to celebrate and raise funds so that, in the future, thirty years of cancer survivorship will be the norm, not the exception! Learn about each of the bloggers who participated in the book by visiting each blog on the assigned dates. A few blogs will even be running giveaways, too!
14 May Mama Smiles
15 May Artsy Craftsy Mom and Rainbows Within Reach
16 May B. Inspired, Mama!
17 May Rainy Day Mum and Imagination Soup
18 May Inspiration Laboratories
19 May Experimenting Mom
20 May Outlaw Mom
21 May NurtureStore
22 May Living Montessori Now
23 May Mess for Less
24 May Having Fun at Home and CraftoArt
25 May Mama Mia’s Heart2Heart
26 May Angelique Felix and Sense of Wonder
27 May Sun Hats & Wellie Boots
28 May Duck Duck Octopus
29 May Smiling like Sunshine
30 May Mommy with Selective Memory
31 May One Perfect Day
1 June The Educators’ Spin On It
2 June Kids Stuff World
3 June Rainy Day Mum
4 June Teach Preschool
5 June Dirt and Boogers
6 June Creative Connections for Kids and The Golden Gleam
7 June Montessori Tidbits
8 June Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
9 June The Iowa Farmer’s Wife
10 June Scribble Doodle and Draw
11 June Learn with Play
12 June Kitchen Counter Chronicles
13 June CRAYON Freckles
14 June Glittering Muffins
15 June Wise Owl Factory
16 June Crafty Maa
18 June Lessons Learnt Journal 20 June Growing a Jeweled Rose 21 June Growing Play 23 June JDaniel4′s Mom