Looking for a fun nature craft to do with the kids this spring?(Or maybe you just want to do it for yourself!)
Give Dandelion Fluff Fairy Garlands a go!
They are made with the seed heads of dandelions, which is something we have in abundance right about now!
Head outside and look for unopened seed heads. You’ll want to pick them when the flower has died and dropped it’s yellow petals, but cypsela has not yet opened to release the seed. Gather up a bunch!
Thread a needle onto a long piece of heavy thread or twine, and push the needle through the base of each seed bud.
Pull the first through to the end of the thread, and repeat until you have a seed bud strung every few inches for the entire length of thread. (If you want to minimize the chance of tangles, work with shorter thread segments and simply tie together to form a longer garland.)
Once you have strung all your seed heads and are happy with the spacing and the length, hang the garland in a window and let the sun and nature do their trick.
Over the next several days, the buds will begin to open and become magical fairy-like little round tuffs of fluff.
Did you know? A dandelion seed is the plant's mature fruit, known as a CYPSELA to botanists, and its parachute-like structure is known as a PAPPUS.
Surprisingly, the seeds heads are NOT as fragile as one might imagine, and the friend that tried this reports that over the several weeks the garland graced her window, not a single pappus was shed.
