We haven’t ever celebrated May Day before. I am not sure why because it is such a fun day to remember. This year we made a May Day craft basket to hang from the backs of our kitchen chairs to celebrate. I have heard that when you hang them behind your chair treats can be placed in them. Not anything as elaborate as the treats the Easter bunny brings, but just as fun.

We started by creating a simple cone shape with brightly colored construction paper.  Then we cut vertical slits near the top of the cone to thread the ribbon through.

To make sure that the cones stayed cone shaped we used a glue stick with strong glue. We could have tried to a traditional glue stick, but I wasn’t sure how long they would have held together.

Then we added foam sticky backed flowers that I had punched out of sticky backed foam with an Ellison press. Really any type of store bought sticker could have worked for this project.  We could also have cut our shapes out of the foam. I think that would have been fun. Buttons were added to the flowers to give them a 3-D effect. I avoided the top of the May Day craft basket. Ribbon was later to be threaded through that area of the basket. JDaniel wrapped his foam flowers over the edge of his cone. His May Day basket craft ended up with holes on either side of his cone. A  ribbon was threaded into the holes and tied off.

Why didn’t we just create the design on a flat piece of paper?

There are several reasons:

The foam flowers may not have stayed flat on the paper when the paper was bent.

We could hold the foam flowers down on the inside and outside of the paper when it was cone shaped. We couldn’t do that easily with the paper flat.

We could easily see what the May Day craft basket was going to look like when we completed it.

Completing the May Day Basket

Finally, it was time to thread the ribbon through the basket. I was very careful to not pull the ribbon too hard.  I didn’t want to tear the paper. If your children might have trouble with threading you could do it for them.

With the May Day craft baskets completed, we hung them on the back of our kitchen chairs. I think they look very festive. This craft for kids ended up with a mom version and a child version.  What fun!

If you are looking for other Spring themed crafts for kids, you may want to visit my Spring Crafts board on Pinterest.