Day 4: Palmetto Rose

Greetings all!!

The challenge, or suggestion, of the day was to take a five minute walk, then make something out of what you find where you end up.

Well, Mr. Scalin obviously didn't have a Florida summer afternoon in mind when he created this.

I walked outside after work this afternoon, all excited to be creative, and I met this:



So, it's obvious I was in a bit of a time crunch.  5 minutes didn't take me far, just to the edge of my neighborhood where I met the beginning of a conservation area. Full of trees. And palmettos. And dirt. Not too much to work with.

Hearing the threat of eminent danger reverberating through the sky, I quickly grabbed some palmetto leaves and ran back home, knowing I would figure something out to do with them later.

That's when I thought of those palmetto roses that people sell on the streets... that can't be so hard, right? It's just like origami.

Well, I spent the next half hour trying to find instructions for these roses online, with little luck. There's a few sites, and a few videos, but I wasn't really getting the hang of it.

Eventually, I grabbed my best-of-the-worst-looking rose, fixed it up a little, and called it a day.

Here's what I created, using this site at squidoo:

A little more practice and it might be a cool party trick, but nothing too useful for the classroom.  The challenge (to create something out of what you find where you are) would be a perfect one for the kids at summer camp though! We are always outside and on nature walks, and this is a great way to get your brain moving and use your imagination to make your own thing.

Now, I'm going to clean who-knows-what bugs I brought into my house with those leaves and listen to the rain :)

Enjoy! 

Amy

Ps. If anyone knows something else to make out of palmetto leaves or finds a better tutorial, let me know! I'm interested to see if anyone can master this rose thing too.