Mason Jar Plants

Happy summer everyone!  I hope you are as happy as I am that the end finally came!  I can breathe.  I can relax.  All the dishes in the kitchen are washed for the first time in weeks.  My children like each other again.  Granted we are only three days in, but I am a much happier person than I was last week.  More on our end of the school year later.  For now, I want to show you what I made as end of the year thank you gifts for our preschool parent board.

Last year, my friend Amber was president of the parent board, and, feeling generous, she gave every member of the parent board a pair of flip flops.  Super cute.  Summery.  Useful.  But at $5 apiece (at best) times 25 members of the board, that's a little more money than I wanted to spend.  Plus, I couldn't do flip flops again.  I searched all around and couldn't come up with anything cute for more like $2 per gift.  So I decided I'd make something myself.  Of course I went with my old standby: the mason jar!  This is one of the easiest projects I've ever done, and I think they turned out pretty cute.

Hello, old friend!  I went with a cute, half pint size.  I didn't want something too big to take up too much space.  This little guy is perfect for a kitchen window.

I filled the bottom with a mixture of those decorative shiny glass rock thingys that we purchased and some shiny real rocks that Annalise had in her "treasure box" from preschool.  She just finished fourth grade.  She wasn't too heartbroken to part with some of her treasures.  The rocks at the bottom give you a little bit of a drainage so that the roots don't get too soggy.  (These are technical terms here.  Can you tell I'm a real gardener?)

I didn't want to put too many in; just enough to cover the bottom.  OK, get ready.  Things are about to get really complicated.  Jason bought me six packs of impatiens.  I removed each flower, broke apart the roots a bit and shoved it into the jar.

You see what I mean.  It's a good thing I'm such an experienced gardener and I never, ever kill plants.  Ever.  This took some serious skill.

I gently punched down the soil a bit, just so it all fit in nicely, but really I couldn't have planned that any better.  (And believe me, I really hadn't planned for that to be that easy.)  I didn't even have to use any additional potting soil.

I put my old file folders to use again.  This time I traced a small glass to make circles.  (This part made me yearn a bit for one of those circle punches, I have to admit.)  But I LOVE reusing something I already have, especially something that has literally been sitting in a cabinet for eleven years.

They're not perfect, just like me!

Then I just personalized each one.  And got out my twine, my other old standby.

Here's the finished product!  Cute, isn't it?  And not bad for less than $2 apiece.

And here they are, ready to go to the parent board meeting.  They held up better than I did, and I can attest that, two weeks later, they are still going strong!  Woo hoo!  One of our board members is still on a trip to Spain (lucky duck), so I'm managing to keep hers alive until she returns.  And if I can keep one alive, then surely the others are still kickin'.  At the meeting I was a blubbering mess, as you can imagine.  It's not even my last year there.  I don't even want to think about next year.  Puddles.  It won't be pretty.  I'll have to come up with something really clever to give my girls next year.  They are an awesome board, who deserve a little something pretty.