Nature craft: making a miniature garden

We’ve been having a LOT of fun with our latest nature craft: making a miniature garden.

This is a nature craft that I’ve been wanting to do with the kids for ages.  It can be as simple or as complicated as you want, and you really don’t need to buy any special materials; just head outside and see what you can find.

We started off with a bit of a hunt around the garden, and came up with this haul.  It’s the first time I’ve been pleased that we have lots of moss in our lawn!

Next, we found a couple of plant pots that weren’t being used and filled them with soil.

From this point, the kids were off in a world of their own, creating a miniature garden that reflected their own interests.

Lily is rather keen on fairies, so she created a fairy garden, complete with washing line and pond.

Football-mad Sam’s miniature garden has a goal.

It was lovely to sit in the sunshine and chat while the kids worked on their creations.  Here are the finished gardens:

Don’t they look fab?

Since we made the miniature gardens, an unexpected dahlia has sprouted in the middle of Lily’s; she’s very happy that the local fairies will have some flowers in their garden soon 🙂

This was such a laid-back, easy nature craft; no rules, no fiddly crafting, no mess, and lots of imagination.  I particularly love the fact that the kids got really hands-on with natural materials, and could do the whole activity themselves if they wanted to (the only thing I did was cut down the twigs with some secateurs).

Have you made a miniature garden?  I’m sure we’ll be doing this nature craft again, so if you have any ideas for what to include do add a comment below.  And if you like nature crafts, check out the ‘Naturally Crafty’ nature craft linky which I co-host with Becky from Simple Parenting, it’s a great place to find lots of inspiration.