How to Craft Pond Plants

finished pond grasses and cattails

       We made three dimensional pond grasses and cattails to enhance our doll-sized pond diorama. Place them in the ''shallow'' paper mache waters where ducks may build their nests and lay eggs during the warm summer months.

Supply List:

• recycled milk bottle caps
• paper: dark green, light green, brown and tan
• white school glue
• hot glue gun and hot glue
• cotton ball
• thin wire
  

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Cut four to five lengths of 3 to 4 inches of the thin wire for each grassland ''cap.''
   
2. Unravel a small amount of cotton and wrap this around one end of thin wire. Smooth it into a cattail seed head. 
3. Paint these brown and set aside to dry.
4. Cut papers into two to three inch strips then cut grass tips all along each length. It is not important to do so uniformly as these appear random in nature anyway.
5. Apply white glue at the bottom of each paper strip and wind these together, one after another, inserting the bottom tips of each cattail inside the grasses. Space out the placement of the cattails as you repeat the process using three to four colors of grass-cut paper as you go. 
6. Squeeze a generous amount of glue into the cap and stand the grass upright inside of it.
7. Tuck unraveled cotton around the empty parts of the cap interior. Let the grasses and cattails dry.
8. Tear off pieces of brown paper and dab these with glue. Apply this paper to the outside surfaces of the cap to cover both the cotton and plastic caps. Let the caps dry and harden.
   

Left, cut paper grasses in four colors: lime green, brown, Kelly green and gold.
Center, the paper tufts stand freely on their own, once wrapped and glued about
themselves. Right, cattail seed heads made using cotton batting
and white school glue.

''Grasslands'' crafted from paper and wire and then glued inside of caps
 may be moved about our paper ''pond'' during play. These will provide
 places for our ducks to swim around and build nests for their young.

Plant in the shallow waters of our pretend pond.

 

Research More Native Plants for Toy Ponds Online:

• Beneficial Buffers: Native plants for ponds and lakes in the midwest