In honor of Earth Day on April 22nd, the helium team planned another helium inspires project with the children at Croissant Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale. The project, Recycle, Reuse, Replant, challenged Mrs. Potter’s 5th grade students to create succulent planters by decorating recycled cans and cups with colorful paper shapes. A huge thanks to the Fort Lauderdale Home Depot for donating a gift card to help offset the cost of the succulents!

Chris taught a brief color theory lesson, explaining analogous and complementary colors, and gave the kids instructions on how to complete the project.

He asked the children to pick their favorite color and then choose either analogous or complementary colored paper to design their planter. The kids excitedly chose their paper and set to cutting out shapes for their creation.

It was a bit of a challenge to glue the paper to the cups and cans, but they were determined to make it work! To our surprise The Illuminati was a popular theme, along with dragons and other animals. Apparently Gravity Falls, a Disney cartoon show, delves into the mysterious Illuminati and is very popular amongst 5th graders. Who knew?!

The helium team helped the kids when needed and had a great time interacting with them.

Once each child finished decorating their planter, they chose their favorite plant and learned how to care for it.

helium inspires was created to give children access to the arts and inspire creativity. Our mission is to help kids realize it’s OK to play, to be different, and express yourself through art. Art outreach projects are vital to our community, because many public schools no longer have art programs.

We had an awesome time with the kids at Croissant Park Elementary and are so thankful to the teachers who made this project possible: Mrs. Kerr and Mrs. Potter!

Be sure to follow @heliumcreative on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for inspiration, design and more community outreach projects!