Making an indoor memory garden with your child is a lovely way to create a place to go to within your home where they can remember their special person who has died. 

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You will need:

• Twigs, lollipop sticks, paper straws, or similar
• A container, e.g., plastic take away box, vase, plant pot, empty jar or yoghurt pot
• Pebbles or stones
• Coloured tissue paper
• Thread, glue, or Sellotape
• Paint or pens for decorating

Instructions:

1. Start by decorating your container with paints, pens, or craft materials. You could choose colours and decorations that remind you of your important person who has died. 

2. Now you can fill your decorated container with pebbles and stones. (You could also decorate the ones you’re going to put on top if you want to!) You will need enough stones for the twigs, straws, or lollipop sticks to stand up in the container.

3. To make flowers for your memory garden, carefully cut circles out of the tissue paper. If you don’t have coloured tissue paper, you can use wax crayons to colour in greaseproof paper. You could choose colours that remind you of your person if you want to.

4. Put two circles on top of each other and pinch the centre at the bottom to make a flower (see the photo). Tape the pinched part or ask an adult to tie a piece of thread around it to keep it in place.

5. When you’ve made as many flowers as you would like, you can tie or glue them to the branches (twigs/lollipop sticks/straws or similar). Then start placing them in your container - you may have to fiddle with the position because of the pebbles at the bottom, but they will help them stand up!

6. Now you have a beautiful indoor memory garden to put somewhere in your home. You might take some time to sit near it and think of your person whenever you want to remember them. You could also remake this garden in a different way for any festive celebration.

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Watch our short animated film which helps children, young people and adults understand grief and how to manage it.