Kids’ Activity : Flower arrangements ..

It was Mother’s Day last week and the kids did some flower crafts for their grandma. They call it ” flower cakes ” and here’s a pic…

One is supposed to give jasmine flowers ( dok mali ) on Mother’s Day , but I felt jasmines are a bit too soft for little children to handle. I don’t want to end up doing all the work so I got the more hardy flowers, the white ” dok rak ” (which means ” love flower “) and the pink ” barn mai roo ruai ” (which means something on the lines of ” blooming to eternal wealth ” <– I may be wrong in this translation, if anybody knows, please tell me).

I found out that half a kilo of each flower was way, way, WAY too much for this activity. I played around with the left-overs and make a super-easy-mini-tutorial :

I got the supplies from the flower market ( Pak Klong Talad ). The oasis ( that’s the green sponge) is 50bht for 3 blocks . The pink flower 25bht/half kilo ; the white ones 20bht/half kilo ; bamboo skewers 10bht/pack. Now I know how people here can support themselves by selling flower garlands.

Slice off half a block of oasis and further divide them into 3 blocks of varying heights. Soak them in a bucket of water. Arrange them on a plain container. Break the bamboo skewers ( they are 2 inches long ) into half and pierce flower on one end. You will have to pluck the stem and leaves off the pink flowers. Next is free form. Just fill up the oasis with skewered flowers whichever way you like. If you get tired of all the poking, you can cheat by wrapping leaves around the oasis, like in the right-most picture.

The white flowers last 3 days before they turned yellow. The pink one still looks the same , even today.