Something to do - Gardening Fun

One of our "homemade" Christmas gifts that we made for E was a mini garden. She loves, loves, loves to garden and this was such an easy gift to make. We bought a plastic bin, some fake flowers that were on sale and trimmed their stems a bit sins they were super long, some sunflower seeds from the grocery store, a garden trowel and some organic potting soil. And then we waited until the night before Christmas before putting it together. And that's when we noticed it...

I really wanted organic potting soil because the thought of E playing with chemical filled soil wasn't too appealing to me. What I didn't realize what that when you don't use chemicals to nourish the soil you go natural... Yes, our living room smelled like a farm. To put it nicely. We realized that we could not let her play in that soil and stumbled out into our dark backyard, dumped the soil where I think my FIL plated some roses and grabbed some sand from the sandbox.

I have to say that this, easy to make, inexpensive gift was a huge hit. We actually had to remind E a few times that she had more gifts to open. She just wanted to keep planting. I think this is a gift we can keep adding to as little rewards or "just because" gifts here and there. Maybe some more gardening tools, gloves and apron. More seeds and flowers. A watering can. What else? Do you have any suggestions?