Guest Blogger: DIY Shrinky Dink Garden Stakes

We just finished planting our garden today! We dug, we weeded, we watered and we GOT DIRTY! My kids, 2 and 5 years old, had so much fun! I so want them involved in watching things grow. I want them to know and experience God's creation first hand!

Now our little garden is so pretty I could just stare at it! But there was just one thing that bothered me...those little plastic garden stakes! They tell you how far apart to plant the veggies and when to water, but they are SO UGLY!

So, we decided to do something about it! We made our own garden stakes with our very own DIY Shrinky Dinks!

All you need is giant craft sticks, craft glue, permanent markers and #6 recyclable plastic. This is the plastic that comes on top of those tin disposable cake and casserole pans or on take-out containers. Don't throw 'em away--save them for crafts!

We drew pictures of each of our veggies--tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, strawberry and more. Then the kids colored them in. The important part here is the size. Shrinky Dinks...SHRINK. So, you want to make your pictures much larger than you want them.

You can see the size of this little squash was about 2-3 inches---it shrunk down to about an inch wide. I decided I liked them a little bigger, so I made our next few about 5-6 inches high so they would be about 3 inches after shrinking.

Once they are colored and ready to go, just put them on a pan and bake at 350 for about 2 minutes. They will begin to curl up and move around the pan. But don't worry, the fall back down and will be almost perfectly flat after two minutes. If they are sticking up a little bit, just use a spatula to press them down while they are still hot from the oven.

Next, glue them to a craft stick. These larger ones were a little bit wavy on the back so I used a clothespin to keep them in the right spot till the glue dried. {Our cucumbers are going to be pickles, so we made a jar of pickles for our stake!}

Finally it was time for planting our stakes! They look pretty cute, dontcha' think? Even the little ones add a little bit of color to the garden! And when the sun hits them they are almost like suncatchers!

You could use these to spell words (what if you cut out the letters GARDEN? Or MOM and put it in a potted plant for Mother's Day?), identify flowers or even just stick some in a bowl of fruit on your kitchen table!

Thank you, Angie for letting me guest post on your blog today! I'm honored to be here!

Amanda is a stay-at-home mom of two who blogs at Impress Your Kids. In her former life, Amanda was a Children’s Pastor — overseeing, organizing and developing ministry for kids in nursery through middle school, but now that she is a mom, her “skills” are used up on her kids!