Bring This Mary Garden Activity to your Parish! #WomensFellowship

Catholic Feast Days | Catholic Home
May 2nd, 2022 5 minute read

Happy May! What better way to honor Our Mother during her month than with women's fellowship through crafts, coffee, and prayer? This is an activity that I brought to my Parish this past weekend, and it was a hit! In this post, I will be outlining the specific details of the event as well as what materials were used to make our very own miniature Mary gardens. Enjoy!

Gather your supplies. For your Mary garden, you’ll need the following:

• Glass containers for the garden.

• White "rocks" (I bought the 20LB bag, and it was more like sand - not rocks like the image would suggest).

• Small Mary statue. My husband spray painted them white with this spray paint.

• Moss or grass.

• Faux flowers (I got mine from the Dollar Store)

• Small dowels from Michael's. My husband cut them to about an inch and a half, and we hot glued them to the bottom of the container & the bottom of the Mary statue to give her some elevation (she's tiny!) I think we got the 1/4 inch size but I'm not positive because I threw away the packaging.

• Any additional figures or decorations you might like

As the host of the event, here are some additional supplies that I brought:

• tape, scissors, and a hot glue gun (just in case!)
• plastic table cloths for each table (it can get messy!)

• styrofoam bowls to distribute the sand and moss on each table

• plastic spoons to shovel the sand into each glass container

• name tags for each participant
• a Sharpie for the name tags

• a small pot of flowers for the center of each table

• goody bags for each participant, like this rosary sticker.
• gold string to tie to the bottoms of a few chairs (I'll explain this more below)

(below) These are the Small dowels from Michael's that I referred to above. My husband cut them to about an inch and a half, and we hot glued them to the bottom of the container & the bottom of the Mary statue to give her some elevation (she's tiny!) I think we got the 1/4 inch size dowels but I'm not positive because I threw away the packaging.

On the day of the event, I set out the pre-assembled Mary containers on a main table, and the participants got to choose their shape. Easy peasy!

(below) Here's a photo of the tables set up before the guests arrived. The styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons were a great idea and helped the activity to go even more smoothly and quickly (it's only a 20 minute activity to begin with).

Before guests arrived, I tied a small gold ribbon to the bottoms of a few chairs, and at the end of the event had the women look down at their chair legs to see if they had a gold ribbon. If they did, they got to take the floral centerpiece home.

How to do this activity:

Pour Gravel around your statue. Fill the base of your container with a layer of gravel or rocks. You'll need to use the plastic spoons to help.

Add some moss. Add your moss or grass on top of the rocks or gravel, nestling the statue into a soft bed of greenery.

Pluck some faux flowers. Scatter artificial flowers or other greenery among the moss in celebration of Mary’s splendor and beauty.

Decorate the garden. Make it your own! The beautiful thing about Mary gardens is that every single one of them is different.

Voila! You’re done! Place your miniature Mary garden in a place you’re sure to see every day and enjoy our Mother’s presence no matter what season flashes by the window outside.

We've all probably heard the Matthew Kelly motto about Catholics striving to be the "best version of themselves." I recently heard him say that we also have an obligation to make our PARISHES the best version of themselves. That totally stopped me in my tracks. We can complain about our parishes not having xyz, but are we communicating with our priests and volunteering our time, talent, and treasure to make a shift? I was thrilled that my Pastor agreed to this fun, Marian event. It was such a great way to celebrate Our Mother while building up our Parish and Church with meaningful relationships. Feel free to email me with any questions!

If you're looking for goody bag ideas to give to each participant, I have bulk discounts on all of my stickers and temporary tattoos! Click into the listing for more details.

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