One May when I was about seven, my friend and I decided to make May Day baskets for our neighbors. Like most craft projects completed by seven year olds this involved the use of an inordinate amount of construction paper and crayolas. We arranged flowers on the pieces of paper we had decorated and then rolled the paper around the flower bunch to form a cone. We had no problem getting our hands on paper and crayons, but when it came to scrounging up enough flowers, we had to get creative. This creativity took the form of us "borrowing" flowers from other people's gardens...Mrs. Micheals had climbing roses, The Norwoods had had some type of flowering shrub with orange colored blossoms and berries, The Brunings had pansies...you get the idea. Looking back I don't think we tried to avoid giving people their own flowers back, that would have made too much sense. We wanted every one's basket to be full with a happy mix of different flowers... so thoughtful of us right? When we had our baskets complete we took them one by one and left them on our neighbor's doorsteps, rang their doorbell and ran. I guess "borrowing" flowers along with ringing doorbells and running was not a good combination, because after one phone call to our parents from the grouchy lady two houses down, we did not get to make May Day baskets again. It was fun while it lasted though!When I saw Amy's Inspired Idea tutorial for making May Day baskets, I had to join in the fun one more time. I did the project that uses the tin can as the base element. Here is a closer look.
Oh, and in case you are wondering... the flowers are not ill gotten gain, they are from my own backyard this go round! Hope you each have a wonderful day filled with surprises waiting at your doorstep.
5 comments:
Happy May Day Melissa.
Hugs,
LeAnn :)
So gorgeous, Melissa! And I love that story! How funny! I can picture it. :) My daughter's school still has the girls do a Maypole Dance which will be on Saturday rather than today but it's such a fun tradition, as are the baskets!
Oh how I wish little kids still did things like that for May day. I think that is what is lacking sometimes in this country. When I lived in France they had a couple of neat customs around this time of year. My favorite was in May, when the Lilly of the valley were plentiful. Everywhere you went, you would get a sprig of Lilly of the valley for "Porte bonheur" which means good luck. I say we get all those kids out again to make May day baskets. Yours are very pretty....could I have one :)
Hi Melissa,
The demitasse cup in my photo was bought by my daughter when she was visiting her in laws in France. It is a cute set of six that hang on a really neat black iron stand. I broke four of the plates when I was cleaning,and it made me so sad!! I told her to keep a look out for them when she goes again this summer. At least I have two of the plates,but it is still sad :(
These are as cute as can be! What a fun project.
Terisa
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