The Sardinian countryside is beautiful at this time of the year, before the heat of the sun makes everything go golden – which is beautiful too by the way– we are blessed with lush green meadows covered with wild flowers. Splashes of yellow, white and lilac adorn the side of the road, which makes up for the discomfort of reduced visibility when you are driving along a country road because the grass is too tall and you can’t see round the corner. In a few weeks the lush green and flowers will be dry anyway and road maintenance will cut everything down to avoid fire hazards. In the meanwhile we enjoy the flowers and this year poppies seem to outnumber everything else.  Inspired by our drive in the country of yesterday afternoon, when we returned home we made some poppies with what we could find in our art box.

To make our poppies we used red felt for the petals, two straws for the stem, green tissue paper, glue, scissors and a stapler.

Instructions

1. Cut four petals of the same size. 

2. Make a small cut on one side of each petal and overlap the two points to create a curve.  Start with one; secure with a stapler and then move on to the second petal and staple it in the same way opposite and on top of the other petal. Continue with the other two until you have built the flower.

3. Make a few black dots out of tissue paper and attach them to the centre on the flower.

4. Cover a straw with green tissue paper and roll the excess paper at the bottom to make a point

5. Cut some leaves out of tissue paper and glue them on to the stem

6. Attach the petals to the stem and the poppy is done.