Tissue Paper Dialogue

Pretty Paper Posies

The Women’s Retreat at our church is coming up and I am on the planning committee. Our retreat colors are a lovely eggplant-turquoise-lime combo and we are trying to keep everything consistent. We were fortunate enough to have someone donate some very lovely purple and white tissue paper flowers to our decorations, and I thought a great project to do with the girls today would be to make turquoise, blue and lime flowers to mix in.

Wow, were they into this. And chatty about it. From start to finish! I even quit making flowers after a little while and just took dictation.

On a sad note, the poor injured one discovered that rough fiberglass on a cast and delicate tissue paper does not mix. She had to sit this one out. The plus for her was that she got to get up close and personal with some Constitutional Amendments. Nothing brightens your day like some Social Studies homework!

Here is a rundown of this project. First, I laid out the paper and cut it into lots of rectangles.

Then we put them in stacks of 8-12 and accordion-folded them.

Next, we twisted pipe cleaners around the middles for stems. Then rounded the ends.

Then we had to separate the layers of paper and fluff out the flower shapes.

We had an assembly line going for a little while. Then they just sort-of took over and I faded back to listen and laugh.

Middle: “This light blue is a pretty shade of blue. I also like this dark one, its like turquoise.”

Youngest: “Can I sit down to do this now, my back is starting to hurt.” (Clearly I run a sweatshop!)

Middle: “This is fun. Will the ladies know that we made these? Ohhh, I made only three sheets in this one. I think I need to make it again. Are we going to make leaves on these? Can I cut my own?” (Whew! All in one breath!)

Middle: “Wow, that’s actually a lot better flower than that skinny one I made.” (Wow, a sincere compliment!)

Youngest: “These are so thick, it’s hard to pull the sheets apart.”

Middle: “You mean thin?”

Youngest: “Yes.”

Middle: “It’s kind of hard to remember the difference between thick and thin-they both start with ‘thi’.”

Youngest: “You’re right.”

Middle: “I want to make one with all three colors. I wonder how this is going to turn out, do you think it will be pretty?”

Youngest:  “I think it will be pretty cool.”

Middle: “Ohhh, yeah, that side looks really cool. I tried the red scissors just for fun and they worked.”

Youngest: “I want to do my own mixed-up multicolored one.”

Middle: “Are you just using me as an experiment to see if yours will work?”

Youngest: “Yes.”

Youngest: “What if someone made a flower with all the colors of the world? They’d have to only use only piece from each color. And it would be one big flower. It would have to go outside their house.”

Middle: “And that’s one big pipe cleaner!”

Youngest: “It would really go outside the whole house.”

Middle: “Wait, lengthwise?”

Youngest: “Yes. And tall-wise.”

Middle: “That’s huge!”

Youngest: “Yep.”

Youngest: “I’m going to watch you make this one.”

Middle:  “Well, it is pretty challenging.”

Sometimes it's best to sit back and just listen!