Woodland Basket

We attended the funeral of a very dear grandma of homeschool friends this week. She truly exemplified "a life well lived." Although Helen was in a motorized scooter and had very limited mobility from post-polio syndrome, she was a light to every room she entered. I made a woodland basket for our sympathy offering.

It is possible to make a short message on ribbon with glue and glitter. I was always elected to do this when I worked in a flower shop. We find the moss and nuts, sticks and stones in our grove. There is usually a great selection of really nice baskets at thrift stores for a buck or two. I try to keep a couple on hand in our basement to use when I need to without running to town. I stuff the base of the basket with plastic grocery bags and add a flowering plant. Usually violets are avaliable and reasonably priced. Silk flowers can be used too.

I made a little card for the basket from the discarded sack my sympathy card came in. I used a black permanent marker to quickly draw a few violets around the edges and colored them in with Prismacolor colored pencils. I tore the edges and ran a wet watercolor brush along it, then painted the edge with a bit of purple watercolor paint so it bled. I tore the edges of a piece of purple paper to about the same size for a backing, and glued the two papers together with a glue stick. A message and a hole punched in the corner, and the card is ready to be tied on with a bit of purple ribbon.