Special Mother's Day Gifts at Home - How Tuesday Herb Pounding

Mother's Day is right around the corner, so I thought I would start sharing a few make at home gifts you could do yourself.  And to combine with it, we are so excited to be giving away $350 in gift cards for Mother's Day to four lucky readers. The giveaway will run from April 23 – May 8.  

For the next couple weeks we are going to give you instructions for some personalized herb theme gifts  to make for your Mom. and if you visit the other bloggers in the links at the bottom you will get entries in the drawing.  Have fun explore and creating!

Herb Pounded Gifts

Tools Needed

parchment paper/wax paper

rubber mallet

fresh herbs, leaves or flowers

card stock, note cards, plain gift bags or plain white napkins

Steps

You need a sturdy table or the floor to do this craft, as you will be pounding things and don't want to take out a table in the process.

Line the table with newspaper or torn brown paper bags to protect the surface.

Gather some fresh herbs, leaves or flowers from the yard.  The brighter the color the better the transfer in pounding.  You can even gather some grass fronds.

Do a test run to see how this works and get a feel for how hard or soft you need to pound.

I use a few pieces of card stock to test my flowers.

You place the flower/leaf face down on a sheet of white paper. Place parchment or wax paper over the greenery. Pound with a rubber mallet, being careful not to allow the flower/leaf  to reposition itself.  

Don't pulverize it, just pound it hard enough to break open the cells of the plant so they release the color onto the paper.

Once you get the hang of how hard or not hard to strike, then you can move to your real items.

Again lay your item flat on the surface.  Place the flower, leaves or grass on the surface 

Cover with parchment. Pound with the rubber mallet to transfer the color.

Remove the parchment and remnants of greenery and compost them.  Then add different layers of color with other leaves and plants.

You can add some drawn art to fill in the colors or just go with the natural pounded flower look.

If you use card stock, trim the card stock to fit in an envelop and you have stationary for Mom.

or if you use a gift bag, you can put other gifts inside your homemade bag. And maybe that gift are these great grass decorated napkins.

Like a grass stain these are hard to wash out, so the napkins are totally washable, the grass patterns will fade over time, but it will take a while.  Have fun and get outside!