Pure Project #14: Ride Down Memory Lane

When I was little and I used to visit my grandparents lakehouse during the summer (where my dad lives now) one of my favorite things to do was pick flowers.  They were everywhere in Antioch.  We used to make these little pressed flower arrangements in the dirt called "madonnas."  Have you ever heard of these?  I tried googling them and nothing came up so I don't know if maybe it's just something my Grandma Maestranzi made up??  Anyway, I remember doing it with my cousin Tracy.  It's so one of those things we probably shouldn't have been doing on our own, but it's one of my best memories.  Tracy & I went into the garage and filled up a paper bag with glass jars.  She hammered the jars and broke the glass.  (I was probably 5 and she was maybe 12? seriously.)  Then we took the "good" shards of glass and saved them for our maddonnas.    

{Tracy & I---- hammering glass for madonnas this summer... 20+ years later}

Then we picked a bunch of flowers and made little arrangements in the dirt and covered them with the broken glass pieces. 

We used to make little "tours" around the yard and take people from spot to spot to check out our madonnas.  This year we thought it would be fun to do madonnas with our kids. 

{Francesca, Christian & Maddie}

They girls had so much fun picking flowers and Christian just loved being with them.  This time, I handled the glass shards, but we let the girls make arrangements.  (Francesa is my cousin Michelle's daughter and Maddie is Tracy's daughter..  and Christian's mine :)

The photos really don't show how pretty they are...

{lily petals & weeds}

...  But I can share Maddie's reaction to them with you.  We wanted to surprise the girls so I had everything ready to go and did a couple of madonnas myself to show the girls for when they came outside to help.  When Maddie saw them she was wide eyed.  She has this soft little voice and she's a pretty chill kid who doesn't get excited about just anything.  She just stared at them in awe and said really slowly, "Oh...what are these beautiful things called?!!" It was too funny.

  They're literally just flowers & leaves pressed into dirt and covered in glass, but to a kid there's just something so beautiful & special about them. 

So this week's project is to take a minitrip down memory lane and recreate an old pastime.  Do something you loved to do as a kid and do it with your kids if you have them.  If you don't, do it on your own or with a friend and I think you'll be surprised at how much you still enjoy it.  -maybe it's a craft, a game, a meal, drawing, coloring, etc---   IF you're up for madonnas, it's also a fun tradition to start with your family and kids love it.  (just make sure that you're in charge of the glass unlike when we were kids.)  Let us know how the projects go and be sure to link up if you join in!!