You guys, just be glad that I’m not writing the post that I was thinking about all night. I barely slept at all for some reason and I had my typical worry/insane thinking session. I don’t know about you, but if I wake up in the middle of the night, I obsess over things. Pick a topic. I’ve obsessed over it. It used to be things like “Ralph didn’t eat very much. What if he has cancer? Should I take him to the doctor? That’s expensive, though. But what if I don’t and then he gets sicker and they say something like they could have saved him if they’d only caught it sooner. And then he died. I’d be killing Ralph. I’m the worst pet owner. Tomorrow I have to call the vet. I don’t have any vacation days left, though, so I’ll have to take him in super early and he’ll probably have to stay there all day until I can pick him up after work. He’s going to be so scared all day…” Seriously. It goes on and on. All night. When I finally fall asleep at 5 am and wake up at 6 am, I’m like “What the heck is my problem. Ralph’s fine.” Last night I was OBSESSING over what I was going to write today. I don’t remember what the “theme” of the post was going to be, but I felt that I would have to give you some of my “back story” in order to convey the information or something. And then it was going to get really personal and…weird. Good grief. Maybe one day I’ll tell you my story, but not today. I’ll probably save that for the book (I’m not writing).
ANYWAY…
I glued the petals on the peony last night. Here’s the final product:
It didn’t turn out TERRIBLY, but I’d never use it for anything. But fear not. I already have freshly made paper waiting at home to be cut, painted and shaped. I’m telling you, I’m not giving up on this project. Things I learned:
1 - The paper needs to be MUCH thinner than I made it. The girl said 1 mm (which of course means nothing to me as it’s metric), but Ryan informed me that 1 mm is extremely thin and he didn’t think I could make that happen. On my second attempt, I made it thinner, but it’s still not 1 mm.
2 - Do not trace your petals in pen. OK. Well, maybe you could do that if you had so much paper that you were sure you’d have enough for all the petals. I, of course, didn’t (probably because the paper was too thick) and had to reconfigure everything to squeeze as many petals out of one sheet as I could. That meant that there are ink lines all over that weren’t covered by paint. Oh, and I also didn’t have enough for all the petals. Good times…
3 - Make the thing in the center (the stamen?) smaller or arrange the flowers higher up. That thing is shooting out the top and the first thing I’d say is “Hey, why is there yellow paper shooting out the top?” Thumbs down.
4 - Don’t forget to make the “acorn” when you roll out your wet paper. I didn’t realize that step was skipped until I got to the part where it said “glue your yellow paper to the acorn.” Aw crap. Well, at least I was in the process of making more paper and was able to steal some of that for this flower.
5 - Do something to make the petals “shape” better. I’m at a bit of a loss here. The petals were ripping a bit when I glued them on because they didn’t really want to curve around when I glued them on. I’m hoping it’s just because they were too thick, but I’m guessing on that. I let them dry for more than a day, but they were still a bit damp. As a side note, do I live in a swamp or something? It was very hard to get everything to dry. Anyway, I’ll see what happens with the thinner petals.
I also bought a lighter pink paint which I think I might use for the inside leaves, but leave the outside the current pink. I might also skip the pearlized varnish (or whatever it’s called). It’s a little My Little Pony for me.
I should have the second flower finished by Saturday, so I’ll take pictures again. For some reason I’m determined to master this.