Sunday, April 8, 2018

H is for Hyacinth


I pinned this pin a couple of years ago with plans to use it for the A to Z Challenge, but it got bumped for one reason or another. THIS IS THE YEAR, THOUGH, BABY!

http://www.ssww.com/blog
/easy-paper-hyacinth-flowers/


I love hyacinths. When I was a little girl, my great aunt had some and I loved the colors and the sweet scent. Some previous owner of our house planted some hyacinth bulbs around a tree in our front yard, and it makes me happy when they bloom every spring (I'd be even happier if there were more of them, but (a) I'm not a gardener and (b) I would have to think about it in November when the bulbs should be planted rather than in March when they're already popping out of the ground after their long winter's nap).

A little vase filled with paper hyacinths would be bright and cheerful in my living room, and Nora wouldn't be attracted to them and knock them over as she would with cut flowers (more on that later). 

The only materials needed were construction paper, scissors and glue - easy peasy - but the directions were a little vague and oddly executed, starting with making the stem by cutting a strip of green paper, rolling it into a tube (have you ever worked with construction paper? It's cheap paper, kind of stiff, doesn't lend itself to rolling smoothly) and then gluing the long edge to complete the stem. Whaaaa? That's, like, nearly impossible:

You seriously cannot glue this to
make a tube the size of a drinking straw.


Nora didn't like the stem, either.


I cut the strips of colored paper for the petals as per the directions. So far, so good.



The next step was to glue one end of a cut piece to the top of the stem and wind it around and around, gluing as it wrapped around the stem:



When I finished, it looked like this:



Nora didn't like it, either. She tried to kill it:




Lest you think I'm just not that good at making crafts, know that two years ago for the Challenge, I learned to make exploding boxes, and they are beautiful and I love them and make them often:

I can't find a good picture without working
harder at it than I am willing to do right now,
but this is the inside of one of the boxes...

...and this is the box after it
has been folded up.

Apparently, at some time I forgot I had pinned this project and pinned a DIFFERENT hyacinth craft as well. I didn't use that pin this time, because the directions called for cardstock, and while I have TONS of scrapbooking paper, I was pretty sure my cardstock was too stiff to use in this situation (the writer was Canadian - is Canadian cardstock not as heavy as American cardstock?) and I didn't want to go buy anything when I DID have construction paper.

http://onelittleproject.com/
paper-hyacinth-flowers/

So you know what I did? Tried the second pin with just construction paper.

Know what else? I don't think the first pin was legit. Smoke and mirrors. There is NO WAY you could get results like that with the directions given and the paper used. The second pin had great directions, and had I used better paper like directed, I would have had a right nice hyacinth when I was done.

First, the stem was cut exactly the same, but this one was rolled up like a drinking straw and actually held together:


The colored paper was cut without folding and the edges were curled around a dowel or knitting needle (I used a make up brush because that's what I had without searching). It would have curled better with better paper, but this wasn't bad:


Not bad. I messed up the leaves, though.

The moral to the story is what you see on Pinterest isn't necessarily what you get. The first pin was fake fakey fake fake. The second was the real deal. Now I'm done with hyacinths for a very long time.

Nora didn't help the ugly one, but
she didn't hurt it much, either.

"My work here is done."


19 comments:

  1. How beautiful. Thanks for sharing. My next a to z post is Hearing Loss and how we can deal with it or prevent it.

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  2. hahah this was a real funny post. I could make a whole blog post about my recent pinterest fails.

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    1. Sometimes I think half the fun of Pinterest is the fails!

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  3. This was so much fun to read! I'm not the kind of person who does pinterest crafts, but this seriously makes me want to try some! Maybe because I love origami, and while this isn't that, it is pretty close!
    "https://melaniecrousesblog.blogspot.com/2018/04/h-is-for-happier-with-gretchen-rubin.html>Melanie's Stories

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    1. Hmmmm...I'm really messing up technologically speaking today. I'm leaving a swathe of links that don't link. Sorry! Let's try this one. Melanie's Stories

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    2. I had a pretty good feeling this was a too good to be true craft, and I was right! The second one, I would do again if I ever felt the need to have paper hyacinths in my house!

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  4. The second one came out great. Those pinterest pins are often misleading I think. Beautifully staged pictures, less than helpful directions. I usually get a few "versions" of something and split the difference before attempting on my own. Weekends In Maine

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    1. Yeah, totally a smoke and mirrors post. I get really aggravated when I see a cool post and there's no link at all, just a beautifully staged photo, or, worse, it takes you to some spam site.

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  5. I think the second one is very pretty, and so is your assistant by the way! :-) I often have the same result with online recipes... the photo looks great, the directions are unclear, and the result is nothing like what I hoped for, regardless of what it says in the comments (or else I am just a bumbling idiot). I can remember making literally hundreds of giant crepe paper daisies to sell at a carnival booth for some high school program, it was fun, but it was messy and I found it easier to do than to show my friends how to help me. Elmer's glue was our only option back then, today there are nicer things to work with, and does anyone even buy crepe paper anymore?? :-) I would love to see a vase of your second-version hyacinths, and I know Nora would love them too!

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    1. Nora was bent on destroying that first flower, and I can't blame her. It looked like some kind of thistle. I have a bad habit of not reading recipes, directions, supply lists, etc., before starting a project, so sometimes, I get what I deserve!

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  6. The second ones are so much nicer! I never do pinterest crafts, but I enjoy watching you do them.
    http://findingeliza.com/

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  7. I love hyacinths, and it always makes me smile to think that such pretty and sweet-smelling beauties are related to asparagus. Now that you've mastered the construction paper flowers, I think you should try them with crepe paper ala Josie Two Shoes. And that way you can scent them with a bit of perfume and they'll smell lovely as well. P.S. No matter what project you try, it could never be a fail if you took a photo of Nora with it. :-)

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    1. I don't think I knew hyacinths were related to asparagus! I may retire from the paper flower business, although a preschool mom once made me a really cool bouquet of paper flowers (made with cardstock!) that I still have and still love, so maybe I'm not done yet. And Nora is in the middle of everything, whether I need her help or not!

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  8. You and Nora make quite the team!
    I'll go with you if you want to tp the house of the first pinner...

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    1. That first pinner deserves to be tp'd. With paper hyacinths.

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  9. Preschool spring craft? I like the second one much better.

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    1. Definitely too hard for preschoolers, but we do make a hyacinth craft in the spring with fingerprints and it's really sweet (and I found the idea for it on Pinterest!).

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