Dandelion Bookmarks

We had so much fun making our dandelion crowns this week, that the girls have been asking for another dandelion craft. Much to my husband's joy, we used up almost all the dandelions in our yard for our crowns, so we needed to find a craft that only required a few flowers.

We found perfect inspiration from Don Freeman's Dandelion, an old fashioned lesson on being yourself. The story, which was originally published in 1968, is about a no fuss lion, named Dandelion. He decides to get a haircut, after being invited to a "tea and taffy party" at a fancy friend's place.

The haircut turns into a curl, and a new set of clothes, and a cap, and a cane, and a store bought bouquet of flowers for the hostess...so that when he arrives at the party he is so dapper, and dandy - he's unrecognizable. But, after a rain squall blows through, returning him to his simple self, he is not only recognized, but welcomed. He promises his friends, and himself, "From now on I'll always be just plain me!"

We made our Dandelions, by sandwiching dandelion flowers between our paper, and a piece of wax paper, face down, and then hammering them flat.

When we removed the wax paper, and the loose bits of flower, we were left with a fuzzy sort of print.

The girls (the boys have not been feeling crafty at all, lately), glued on googly eyes, and tiny pompom noses.

Then, I drew in the mouths, and ears with a marker, and outlined lion bodies, for the girls to color in.

We cut them apart, and I penciled in the last quote from the book - the "just plain me" quote from above, for them to trace in marker.

We finished them off with a covering of clear contact paper, to protect our books from the dandelion bits.

If I'd known how cute the lions were going to turn out, I would have had the girls make them on thin cardboard, to cut out, and glue to craft sticks, as puppets. But, the girls were already in bookmark mode, by the time I realized where the project was going, so bookmarks it was.

It's great to be a homeschooler.