Kaleidoscope Love Stems

We held a Family Fun Night at our school last week. I thought it was important for the kids to do something that benefited others only, rather than focusing on projects and events there were entirely for themselves.



We made LOVE-STEMS. It was the perfect community project to get kids involved in. I learned about them this past summer. My own children worked with me to make a batch of our own for a friend. It was good for them and I expected it to be the same for our students.




We had about 50 or so people show up. I was limited to an hour so I pre-painted many toilet paper rolls to get the evening started. I also had an after school get together with a few parents to pre-fill the pots with plaster-a-paris and set our skewers. Our older students will be visiting a nursing home in November so we decided we would make sure we had enough to give each resident a flower pot. Any over and above that we will give to the senior center or another nursing home facility here in town.



I think we completed nearly enough that night for the planned trip in November. They currently line the tops of the shelves in our library. I have this many more to make plaster-a-paris pots for. Anyone want to come help?


If you are in need of a community service project or just interested in doing something nice for someone else with you own children or a community group of your own, consider trying this. Not only are they bright and cheerful which a lot of people could use these days, they contribute to recycling which is never a bad thing.

Here are the steps we use.

*paint your toilet paper roll one color inside then one color outside (prior to cutting). Let them complety dry.

*Poke one hole at the bottom of your roll and slide your skewer through to the top. Don't push your skewer through the top too far as the rolls will then slide down you skewer. In other words the bottom hole will be larger like the diameter of the skewer but the top hol will only allow the pointed end of the skewer through. I use a knife tip to start my bottom hole then slide the skewer through.

*Once you have a hole at both ends of the toilet paper roll, decide if your flower will have stems on each side or one. I personally think they look best with both sides cut. Cut your petals. I have learned if you make the petals very thin, they look darling although they offer less oppurtunity for design on the petals.

* Fill each cup with plaster-a-paris about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way.

* I pre-paint my skewers and put them in the cups prior to having the flowers made.
*Paint your designs on the petals, inside and out. I think they look better with dots, stripes and/or blocks of colors. Let these dry well.

*Slide your rolls on the skewers. Put some grass in the pot. Cut and tie on a tag. I think they look far better with a tag. I've done it both ways. Plus it's nice to have a note where as to where they came from. Our tags say Love-Stems on one side and Created with Love by a Kaleidoscope student on the other.

*Lastly, if you decide to do this, I think you should contact them and let them know what your doing. I think it is a fabulous idea and I know they'd like to see their idea growing!

Calling for Your Prayers

You all know Kelly. She has been my best friend for as long as I can remember and is as much my family as any other. Her mom Jana is like a mother to me and I am blessed to call her my friend. We have shared many things over the years and she has always been there for me.

This past Friday Jana was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. She has already begun chemotherapy (on Saturday) and will continue treatments over the course of the next 18 weeks. She is doing well and the doctor seems quite positive about her prognosis. She is a very strong woman and isn't the type to allow something to keep her down. I know she will do everything in her power to get better and conquer this cancer.

I am asking all of you for your prayers. She means so much to me and there is nothing more powerful that I can do for her other than ask that you all include her in your prayers and pass on the request. Thank you.

Now, in light of this trial a wonderful thing happened. Here is my story.

Jana has been in and out of the hospital since February. She has had multiple visits with doctors and ended up back in the hospital about two weeks ago. When I found out she was in the hospital I sent a plant to let her know I was thinking of her.

She was diagnosed with cancer on Friday. On Saturday she was moved to the cancer ward. That night I was talking to Kelly and feeling a bit worthless; I mentioned that I should send flowers this time since I'd sent the plant last time. We snickered and went on.

The next morning Kelly told me she'd learned that fresh flowers weren't allowed for chemo patients as the standing water posed a risk to patients with low immune systems, which is caused from the treatments.

Well, (as I mentioned in my most recent post) I have been perusing many blogs lately and one really special one I'd stumbled across was titled Love-Stems The story is fairly simple. This mom and her family make flowers from toilet paper rolls and deliver them to those they believe could use a bright spot in their day.

Since Jana couldn't have fresh flowers this seemed the most perfect solution. Well the idea grew and we decided Jana would love receiving the flowers but she might also love giving some away. The girls and I had a lot of discussion about the gift of giving and why it might be just as wonderful to receive the ones she could pass on as the ones we made especially for her. So, the last few days we have been busy. And the finished result is wonderful.

I can not possibly tell you how fulfilling a project it's been but I encourage you to try it just once. Even if you don't have it in you to pass them out. Make some and take them to your local hospital. Tell them this story and I am sure they will pass them on. Once you make them you will find that you may want to do it again. We are already saving more toilet paper rolls.

This is fairly early in the process. Cassi and I had painted most of our rolls with the outside color and were starting to paint the insides.


We gave most of our flowers many patterns and LOTS of color.


We were spread out about the table for the past several days.


Cassi was probably the most committed to the project. She is also quite the artist.



I loved doing this with her, with all of them, but I think it is a bond we will remember for a while.

As you can see, when the weather got better, we moved our assembly line outside. It was joyous.

Even Cali got in on the painting action. Mostly she painted red and yellow, her two favorite (obsession is more like it) colors. Here we managed to get her to think pink, just for a minute.


Some of our final products.


And some close-ups.



They really are wonderful, don't you think?

Here is what you need to do to make yours.

• Collect toilet paper rolls. I would suggest starting small as you need to see how much time it will take.
• Paint on your outside color. I used acryllic paints since it's what I had. I think tempera paint would work too. We wanted a lot of color choices too. I would also suggest painting the insides at the same time. I would paint the insides before cutting them. I didn't do this but I will next time. I suggest foam brushes although we used fat craft brushes. I think the foam ones would cut your time down.
  
• Paint your barbecue skewers (stems). I think they are also called bamboo skewers.
  
• Cut strips on your roll. Some of ours are two sided and some are one. I did notice it is easiest to have the same style in the cup rather than one of each.
• We used colored paper cups from the party store. Anything inexpensive would work but we wanted these first ones to be really nice and the girls really wanted the purple and green cups.
• Mix plaster-of-paris and pour into cups. I think I filled about a third of the cup.

• Once it has set a bit, push in your flowers. Making sure your flowers are assembled makes it easier to see which way they will sit in the cup. I fiddled with this a lot. I suppose I was being a bit of a perfectionist. Making as many as Love-Stems does one might get a little more carefree.

• Lastly, get some easter grass or make your own shredded paper from something you can recycle and put it around the cup. I had blue that I found at a garage sale so I used that. It was colorful and cute. I did notice on their website there is a photo of flowers in a flower pot with real grass. If I had access to real grass I'd probably use it as the photo looks darling.

Hope you guys enjoy the pics and seeing what we are up to these days. It was a fun past couple days and knowing we are doing something to make a better day for someone else was really cool.
Love you all.