Pages

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Resurrection Garden

Have you seen this idea for an "Easter Garden"?
Plant an Easter Garden!  Using potting soil, a tiny buried flower pot for the tomb, shade grass seed, and crosses we made from twigs.  Sprinkle grass seed generously on top of dirt, keep moistened using a spray water bottle.  Spritz it several times a day. Set it in a warm sunny location.  Sprouts in 7-10 days so plan ahead. On Good Friday, put a little lego Jesus inside and slide rock to seal tomb.  On Sunday the tomb is EMPTY! He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!
Plant an Easter Garden! Using potting soil, a tiny buried flower pot for the tomb, shade grass seed, and crosses we made from twigs. Sprinkle grass seed generously on top of dirt, keep moistened using a spray water bottle. Spritz it several times a day. Set it in a warm sunny location. Sprouts in 7-10 days so plan ahead. On Good Friday, put a little lego Jesus inside and slide rock to seal tomb. On Sunday the tomb is EMPTY! He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

I kept seeing it all over Pinterest. Then, Ann Voskamp published a post about creating a Grace Garden. I really wanted to do this, but of course I waited until almost the last minute. :)  We were sort of having a rough day and we needed something to get us back on track, so I packed the kids into the van and we ran to Wal-Mart. The Lord helped me find some very inexpensive plants, a small terra cotta pot, a bag of potting soil for $.97. I couldn't figure out what to do for the pot. They didn't seem to have the right shape basket or pot or anything for what I wanted to do AND in the price range I needed to be in. So I decided to use one of the cocoa liners and put it in one of the plastic liners that you are supposed to set your pots in to catch the water that drains out of the bottom, both of these cost under a dollar! So, I think I maybe spent a total of $12.00 on this project. When we got home, the kids gathered up some stones. We still need to find a large one to cover the opening of the "tomb".

We plan to follow the ideas that Ann outlines and on Friday we will shape a caterpillar out of clay and wrap it in cloth. Then on Sunday only the cloth will be left behind and a butterfly (new life) will be in the garden.
The kids have this all figured out: I will get the cloth, Lucy is going to make the butterfly, Jude is going to shape the caterpillar, and Mayme is going to make the puppy (out of play dough)...don't ask me how the puppy relates, she just insisted. :) Tyson said the puppy will remind us how faithful Jesus is. Also, we have a stone hidden in the garden, and on Sunday we will reveal it. Lucy wrote the word "grace" on it and we will be reminded of God's grace in giving us new life.

Once we had our garden in place on the table, there was no way we could fit our candle wreath. Instead, I took one of the add on sections that holds 8 candles. This worked perfectly to represent the days Palm Sunday to Easter. We'll light a candle each day until Friday when everything went dark at noon as Jesus died on the cross. I don't know what to do about Saturday...I guess nothing, just wait and remember. Sunday we will light them again and celebrate the resurrection and grace and new life.

I'm really excited about this. I hope it becomes a new tradition in our home. A constant visual reminder during the most important week in our Christian faith.


 
 
 

My little "helper" with a banana bread crumb face. 

Just having some fun with some new editing options on Picasa. :)

Today, I made the three crosses out of some sticks in the yard. 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It looks WONDERFUL, Heather! :) You guys did an awesome job! I'm trying to come up with different traditions for this time of year too. A fun thing (kinda morbid though too ;) ) that I might do on Friday is make cross shaped pancakes for breakfast. I'm hoping to act out the story as well...

Blessings, friend! :)