We're All Ears :: May Reveal :: May Day Flowers

Hello everyone!
Happy spring!
The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and today it is a lovely 68 degrees here in the heart of Wisconsin. A perfect spring day!

Our challenge for this month was to do something that was inspired by the tradition of May Day (May 1st) with flowers, and baskets and ribbons on maypoles. I hope that you found something to be inspired by in this challenge!

I decided to keep things simple. I came across a bunch of these dyed howlite flower shaped beads and wanted to do something that would combine that with the ribbons of the maypole. I didn't find any ribbon or cord that would work, but I did find a small stash of colored flexible beading wire from Softflex that worked perfectly with the colors. I simply passed the wire through the little flower beads and shimmied them around so that the flat flower part would show rather than stack and crimped them off. Easy peasy! I think that this would work with other beads, like Czech glass flowers or even little round beads or crystals, as long as you can string four strands of wire through the hole.

I tried to do a little video showing how I made them, but I can't seem to get it to download off my phone and it also shot it in two parts with half of it upside down! Grrr! I guess technology is not my friend at the moment!

So in order not to delay this further, I will just show the pictures (although they are so simple I am sure you can figure it out!). If I can get the video to load, I will try to add that later.

Your turn! Brighten up the world with your happy spring inspired earrings!

We're All Ears :: May Inspiration :: May Day

Sorry for the delay in posting. Typically I don't work on Fridays. But we have been going crazy at work. That is a good thing. But that meant that I ended up working [from home] ALL DAY LONG. So now that it is almost 3pm I am finally able to shut off and tackle tasks that I was supposed to be doing all along. Not complaining, because I do have a job and we are doing well, but it is tough that my computer and the phone line that rings is in the same room as my bead cave, so I sit inches from all my beads all day long. And today was supposed to be my day to play with beads and make art. Oh well.

{Sigh.}

So taking a few moments to breathe deep {in. out. repeat}, stretch, and know that I needed to find something uplifting to focus on. Then I realize that today is May 1st, May Day.

I remember as a kid making paper flowers and weaving a paper basket in a heart shape and then dropping that off on some neighbor's front porch, ringing the doorbell and running away to peer from the bushes to see their face light up. I think that is a sweet idea. But I don't know much about why we did this. So I found out from the Farmer's Almanac that there is a lot of tradition and folklore with this celebration.

What I didn't know was that May Day is rooted in astronomy. On this day, we are about halfway between the spring equinox [March 19, 2020] and the summer solstice [June 20, 2020]. Apparently there are Celtic cross-quarter days that measure the time between the solstices and equinoxes each year. Among the other cross-quarter days are February 2 [Candlemas or Groundhog Day], May 1 [May Day], August 1[Lammas Day], October 31 [Samhain "summer's end"]. Read more here.

May Day is part of larger festivals and celebrations that are about dancing and songs all focused on the fields beginning to sprout. Dancing around a Maypole holding colorful ribbons woven in and out is a joyful celebration of fertility of crops and also signals the flirtatious courtship of young people (which explains why there are a lot of June weddings!). Crowning a May Queen, or in the Catholic tradition crowing Mary statues, are also part of these festivities.

So our inspiration for the We're All Ears challenge is the tradition of May Day: flowers in cones or baskets, dancing around a Maypole with ribbons.... or other signs of spring!

Make your spring May Day earrings [bonus: they will be perfect for Mother's Day gifting as well!] and come back here on Friday, May 15th to share!