Friday is Arbor Day, and I hate to short-change it, but I can't stop thinking about Saturday.
Saturday is May Day.
And I have such fond childhood memories of making May Baskets.
I'm sure we probably filled our little woven paper baskets with the "flowers" which grew in the big field behind our house.
But we thought they were beautiful.
On May Day we would hang our little baskets on the front door knobs of elderly neighbors and then ring the doorbell and run.
I don't know if I can ring a doorbell and still run fast enough to be out of sight when someone answers, but I do know I can still cut paper.
And pick wildflowers, if need be.
This afternoon my friend, Able Baker Dana, came over to play with her new watercolors.
I just couldn't settle down to watercolor today.
I kept thinking about May Day and these:
These are the "placemats" I made for last Saturday's tea party.
I brought them home 'unsullied'.
I decided to see if I could make them into May 'baskets'.
Here's what happened.
I folded them in half.
I cut along the fold.
I did a 'roll test'.
(Dana, meanwhile, was watercoloring per original plan.)
See how that top part was sticking up?
I didn't like that.
I decided to trim a little off one side.
And, because I wanted that scalloped edge to look like eyelet, I punched a hole in each of the scallops.
I'm holding the scrap paper underneath to keep the punch from eating my lightweight paper.
It still wrinkled a bit, but so did I and no one threw me out.
After I got the shape right, I gently folded the scalloped edge toward the outside.
(Dana was still quietly watercoloring, with an occasional glance up to see that I was making more noise and mess than actual progress.)
Then I put a little glue-tape at the inside bottom corner and rolled up my cone.
This is where I decided I needed more time this week to mess with all this... but I pressed on to finish the prototype.
I stamped a little image on watercolor paper, and (finally!) joined Able Baker Dana in a little watercoloring.
I cut out the finished piece, glued it to a bright background, and then cut around that, too.
Then I got to messing around with ribbons and forgot to take any photos.
This is where I stopped for the day.
I know May Day is all about the flowers which bloom in May, but I am seriously considering making paper flowers for some of my cones, too.
They wouldn't cost me anything, they wouldn't wilt, and there is something about messing with floral tape that I find slightly addictive.
Like I said, I'll just have to hope I get time to play around with this again before Saturday.
You know what I want right now, though?
A banana split for dinner.