Spring Crafts - Ideas for Elderly Parents FunSpring Crafts Inspire ImaginationSpring brings opportunities for a number of crafting ideas that seniors can enjoy. Spring- time elicits memories of flower gardens, butterflies, rain showers and holidays like Easter, May Day and Mother's Day. Encourage seniors and caregivers to get outside, open windows and enjoy the mellow warmth of golden sunshine.Whether Mom or Dad lives at home, in a nursing home, or an assisted living facility, take the time to discover a variety of spring crafts that you can encourage your parent do indulge in, or as a wonderful way to bond, spend time with, or offer hours of entertainment and companionship for your loved one. Spring Craft Ideas A variety of spring crafts and ideas are available, only limited by the imagination. For example, fun spring crafts can include everything from painted lady bug rocks, to decoupage, to painting flowerpots, to creating coffee-ground fossils. Coffee filter butterflies, paper carnations, and May basket paper plates are just a few of the dozens of ideas activities directors, adult children, and caregivers can provide the elderly for springtime celebrations. For those who love gardening, tin can herb pots are an excellent idea for growing herbs indoors on windowsills. Terrariums are also a unique way to encourage creativity. Terrariums can be made in empty and clean two-liter soda bottles, empty gallon milk jugs cut in half, and even glass bowls or empty fish tanks. Making a terrarium or tin can herb pot is a perfect way to encourage Mom, children and grandchildren to celebrate Earth day. As with any craft, choose those that Mom or Dad is able to enjoy, as well as those that meet their cognitive, physical and dexterity levels. Cheap and Easy Spring Crafts for Seniors Easy crafts such as coffee filter flowers are enjoyable for individuals of all cognitive levels and are cheap to boot. Just take some coffee filters, color them with watercolors, and cut them into strips and arrange in an empty glass jar. * Bright yellow daffodils made from paper plates and foam cups are another excellent way to welcome spring into any environment. Paint a paper plate yellow and cut it into a star shape. Then, paint a Styrofoam coffee cup yellow inside and out and then cut about 2 inches off the wide end. Glue the bottom side of the paper cut to the middle of the star plate to create a giant daffodil. Paint another paper plate green and cut out leaves that you can glue to a stem. Glue the assembly together and tack or tape to every doorway in the nursing home to welcome spring for every resident.* Seniors can make simple bird feeders to attract birds to their windows. Simply take a pint or quart cardboard container of milk or half-and-half and cut a hole in the front middle section of the container. Punch a hole in the top of the milk carton and loop a string through it. Fill the bird feeder with wild birdseed and hang the feeder from a nail or hook from the eaves or a nearby tree branch. * Make an outdoor mobile out of sticks and stones to hang from the eaves or a tree branch outside Dad's window. This is an inexpensive and fun way to engage seniors in their outdoor environment and encourage birds that will very likely be right at home perching on the twigs used to make the mobile. Gather a variety of sticks from your parent's yard or outdoor environment. Then, collect 1/2 dozen are so small stones and rocks and tie them with twine of varying lengths to the sticks. Create a three or four-tiered mobile that will swing in the breeze, offer eye-catching appeal, and provide hours of enjoyment for your parent as birds perch nearby.Encourage your parent to create spring crafts every week, either by herself or with your company, or in the company of her peers and friends. Creating a routine or weekly crafting environment will help keep Mom's mind and imagination stimulated, provide hours of enjoyment, and most importantly, encourage social interaction, which may help prevent isolation or depression. Spring Crafts to Elderly Parents Activities Main Page
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