I love nature prints! They are stunning and transferring pieces of nature onto fabric is a great way to keep a lasting memory of summer flowers and greenery. These homemade pencil cases with nature prints are a beautiful way to keep those lovely bits of summer with you throughout the year! Make a few before the school year starts or experiment with a bouquet in the middle of winter.
I know summer just started, but I want to share this fun craft that will get anyone excited for the coming school year! These homemade sweet pencil cases can be made AND used by children! They can also be handed out as homemade teacher gifts or teachers can make them for the classroom or themselves. This is a craft for everyone and it has many uses!!
This could also make a lovely make up case for Mother’s Day!
Ready to make one or two? Here’s what you’ll need….
Supplies:
- Flowers and leaves
- Canvas pencil case
- Tape
- Hammer
- Iron
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RELATED: Check out 20+ Beautiful Pressed Flower Crafts
Here’s How We Made These Homemade Pencil Cases:
Step 1:
First, gather some of your favorite flowers and leaves. We had the best luck with pansies, random wildflowers, and ferns. I suggest using one pencil case as a tester to see which unique pieces of nature available to you work the best for this craft.
Once you have your pieces of nature, start experimenting! There are several different ways to hammer nature prints onto fabric, but we found this method worked the best for this canvas material.
Place your flower face down on the bag.
Step 2:
Place tape over your piece of nature to secure it in place when you hammer the print. I found it best not to have overlapping tape (as pictured below). This can sometimes leave lines on your nature print. Try your best to cover the entire piece of nature with one piece of tape.
Step 3:
Place a thin piece of wood or cardboard inside the bag. Then hammer way! I found it best to hammer around the outside of the plant first and work your way towards the center to complete the print of each piece of nature.
I modeled this technique once, then let my boys have a turn! It was a fun collaborative effort.
Step 4:
Take off the tape to reveal your print! I like to slowly peel off the tape to make sure we got the entire piece of nature. If not, I just placed it right back in it’s spot to continue the process.
If the print is wet, let it dry before removing excess plant material. My pansies were pretty juicy, so I let them dry before I gently swept away the dried bits.
Once you get the hang of it, you can tape a bunch at one time for a more dramatic reveal!
Once dried, you can iron the prints to help the colors set.
Here are some after photos! Which homemade pencil case do you like the most?
The large fern piece was a bit more difficult because we had overlapping tape which made it a bit uneven, but I think it still looks pretty!
Here are all of our designs in one spot.
Pin this activity to save it for later!
I hope you give this homemade pencil case a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love this activity as my boys.
∼Tara
