Training Your Next Gardener - A Chia Pet Craft

Mowing the lawn.  Isn't it your favourite thing to do on a hot, humid, summer day while the sun beats down on your sore, sweaty back?  It's the summer mowing season that makes me really thankful to live in a condo.  Alas, if you own any patches of lawn, you'll have to mow them, and I say, it's never too early to get your kids trained up to be your next gardener!  This fun grass head craft will (hopefully) get them slightly more excited about tending the greenery in your yard.  Or it will just motivate them to give their younger siblings terrible haircuts (hide the scissors!).

Tip!  Make this craft educational by discussing the science behind plant growth.  You can talk about how plants start as seeds, and how they need sunlight and water to grow, etc.

Materials:

• 1 pair pantyhose
• few cups of topsoil
• handful of grass seed
• cup or small tupperware container
• water
• googly eyes
• hot glue gun 
• pipe cleaners (optional)

Tip!  Do the assembly of this craft outside, so there's less cleanup.  Sweep the dirt into your garden!

Method:

1. Put your topsoil in a container and water it so it's slightly moist and clumpy.
   
   
2. Cut the feet off your pantyhose, so you have a sock that's about 30 cm long.
3. Place your sock inside the cup or tupperware, and fold the top of the sock over the edges. Put one scoop of topsoil in the sock.
   
   
   
   
4. Sprinkle in a handful of grass seed.  Try to distribute it fairly evenly.
   
   
5. Scoop a few cups of topsoil on top of the grass seed, until you have your desired head size.  Try to make it at least the size of your fist so the roots have room to grow.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Periodically press the soil into the sock using your hand, to pack it down.
   
   
   
7. Remove the soil-filled sock from the cup.  Carefully knot the end of the pantyhose to close it up. 
   
8. Take your hot glue gun and glue 2 googly eyes on your head. You can do this before or after the "hair" grows.
   

   

   This is about a month of growth, but don't worry, you'll see the first blades of grass after about a week.

   
   
   
9. Sit your head in about a cm of water in a small tupperware container, or a cup.
10. Place your grass head on a sunny window sill and make sure to water it every few days.
11. Watch that grass grow impatiently, and then grab some scissors to style it once it gets a little long.

    

    She keeps asking to trim the hair!  Wonder if I can get her to do my lawn eventually?

Tip!  Hot glue other accessories onto your grass head.  Want arms?  Glasses?  Use some pipe cleaners to jazz it up. It's basically a homemade Mr. Potatohead!

Congratulations, you've just created your own chia pet!  And you're training your future gardener-slash-hairdresser.

Let us know how your head turned out.  We'd love to see photos of your haircuts!