Craft yourself up a bunch of homemade hanging baskets. Then on May Day (May 1), fill the baskets with fresh-cut flowers and sneak them onto the front doorknob of your friends’ houses for them to discover. Fun, right? On May Day, not only do you get to be an anonymous do-gooder, but you get to be a CRAFTY anonymous do-gooder! When you create one of these five different May Day baskets out of recycled materials, you’re also a crafty do-gooder who’s keeping a little more trash out of the waste stream. Combine your recycled materials with some stash from your own house, and you know what you’re also doing? It’s called Spring Cleaning! Here are the five projects to get you started: My girls have crafted their fair share of tin can robots and such, but I’m always in the market for legitimately useful ways to upcycle tin cans. And wire hangers? You know how I feel about wire hangers. This May Day basket crafted from a tin can and wire hanger, tutorial courtesy of Skip to My Lou, is perfect on both counts. Personally, I also love the brown paper bag wrapper, but I upcycle my brown paper bags elsewhere, so I tend to use stash scrapbook paper or have my children create artwork specifically for these purposes. Next » I hate putting a bottle into the recycling bin and having to simply throw away the cap. Most caps I can donate at our local Recycling Center for their Materials for the Arts program, but not bulky mouthwash caps. Who knew that a mouthwash cap would make such a perfectly adorable miniature May Day basket? Steven James of Macaroni and Glitter, that’s who! This mouthwash bottle cap May Day basket tutorial, posted at Cut Out + Keep, also makes a permanent flower pot home for a teeny-tiny succulent, perhaps. Next » There are a million great ways to upcycle those thin cardboard boxes that make up a lot of food packaging, and here’s another one! Red Bird Crafts posts a handy tutorial for a recycled cardboard hanging basket that works perfectly as a May Day basket, as long as you enclose the damp ends of the cut flowers in plastic. You can tie the flower ends into a bread bag, or, for a sturdier hanging basket, you can line the entire interior of the basket with a recycled plastic bag. Next » I would not voluntarily give up my precious canning jars lightly, but I would give them up as a secret extra May Day treat for a friend who also does home canning, which is why I think that this canning jar May Day basket, from Jaime Giorgi on Design*Sponge, is such a meaningful gift. My favorite part of this particular May Day basket is the fact that the canning jar makes a perfect container for both cut flowers and potted plants, and can be either elaborately decorated or left sweetly simple. Next » When you begin to think outside the box, you’ll see that you can add a hanger to nearly any traditional basket project to turn it into a hanging May Day basket. This woven recycled wrapping paper basket, for instance, tutorial courtesy of My Kids Make, can be made doorknob-ready with just the addition of twine or yarn or wire. It’s also quite versatile in material–instead of wrapping paper, try out any sturdy paper. Magazine pages, children’s artwork, and brown paper bag would all work well here.
