Fig. 233—The circle opened.
Your eye will soon become sufficiently accurate to enable you to gauge the distance from A to B, and you can then cut from C to B without measuring.
Before Beginning Your Flower
take up the natural one and examine it carefully. You will notice that it has a great many petals crowded closely together, and that their edges are pointed like a saw. You will also see that the calyx is wrapped snugly around the lower part of the flower, and that it, too, has a pointed edge.
Now hold the pink off at arm's length. The separateness of the petals disappears and you see them only as a mass; the points on the edges are not noticeable except as they give the flower a crimped appearance, and the edge of the calyx looks almost straight. It is this appearance or the impression of the flower that you are to produce rather than its many and little separate parts. So now set to work.
Cut Two Squares for Each Pink
one measuring five and a quarter inches, the other four and three-quarters inches, and turn them into circles ([Fig. 233]), by the method just explained. Take one of the circles at the centre, where the folding lines cross, with the tips of the fingers of your left hand, and pinch it together; then, while still holding it, crimp the edge with the fingers of your right hand ([Fig. 234]). Do this always with every kind of flower, whether it be made of circles or squares. Without loosening your hold of the centre, draw the paper lightly through your right hand several times, then crimp the edge again, this time with the blade of the scissors. Treat all the circles alike, then place a small circle inside a larger one and draw them through your hand to bring them close together, pinching them closely until within a little over an inch of the edge ([Fig. 235]). Make a slender lighter of ordinary writing-paper ([Fig. 236]), snip off the point of the flower, D, in [Fig. 235], open the other end a little, and push the lighter through until its head is hidden. This forms the stem. Wrap and tie with thread at the bottom of the flower ([Fig. 237]), and again where the petals spread. This last is to be but temporary, as you will remove the thread when the flower is sufficiently pressed together to hold its shape.