The main part of this tutorial is to make a beautiful Frida Kahlo inspired flower vase. It would make a gorgeous summery decoration for your home or for an outside garden party or summer picnic. The idea for this craft came from a serendipitous moment in the winter months when my daughter received this Sass & Belle Frida Kahlo Planter for her birthday, and on the very same day, a friend very sweetly gifted her with a hand-made tissue paper flower. We popped the flower in the vase – the two gifts went perfectly together, and it gave us the idea that we could make something similar for a craft project of our own.
We’ve based our design for this craft on the Frida Kahlo theme (whilst trying to ensure that it was not a direct copy of the original vase), but it’s also possible to use this tutorial to make other characters of your choice – feel free to explore your own character ideas! They don’t have to be human either – you could make a cute cat vase, a rabbit or some other animal – anything you can imagine looking fun with a flower crown 😊
We have used a large Hellman’s Mayonnaise jar for this project and the proportions work very well, but do feel free to try out different shapes and sizes of jars.
With regards to the tissue paper flowers – they are a bit of a crafty classic and can be incorporated into so many different projects (see this paper craft blog post), perfect for the summer months. There are plenty of guides and tutorials on Pinterest so do have a look, the type of flowers you decide to make might vary depending on your vase design. This is a handy, easy to follow tutorial that can get you started. Do experiment with different sizes and shapes of flowers and these will all add to the vibrant effect of your flower crown.
The second craft is to make a miniature fairy terrarium – again, summer and nature themed, you could use this to decorate an outside early evening picnic or gathering, by popping some fairy-lights inside to create a little magical touch in the form of glowing ambience as the sun goes down.
You can make this as tiny or a large as you like and choose your jar size accordingly. We have used a small round jar recycled from Kirsch cherries at Christmas time. Small honey or jam jars would also work as they tend to have interesting shapes.
This is a quick craft to put together if you have a few bits to hand from a children’s play set. Alternatively, you could use mainly nature items like shells, stones, acorn cups, pine cones and so on collected on walks, and if you would like to turn it into a longer craft activity, you could make some items yourself from polymer clay – for example, toadstools, little creatures, or a little fairy door. You can also choose how to add a fairy figure to your terrarium – either you could print and cut out a clip-art fairy silhouette (there are plenty online!) and attach this to a paper straw or equivalent in order to help it stand when secured in the jar. Alternatively, you could use a small fairy figure from a playset if you have one. Feel free to think creatively – even a Playmobil or Lego fairy character could make a fun addition, depending on the other trinkets you decide to include 😊 There are plenty more fairy craft ideas to explore on the main blog – Spark Imagination and Nature-based play through creative Fairy-themed Crafts – if you want to combine this with another project.
We hope you enjoy these sweet summery makes – and if you have any budding young art enthusiasts amongst you, you might like to tie the Frida craft into a wider learning project? Most of all though, have fun and…
Happy Crafting!
© Abigail Cole 2021, find more creative ideas at Abigail’s website Forgetful Fairy Art Studio.
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