There are no patterns, only circles and squares and strips of paper which you gather here, spread out there, wrap and tie some place else and, with deft fingers, model into almost exact reproductions of the natural flower before you.

With its unfamiliar terms to be committed to memory and the many parts of the flower to be distinguished, botany is apt to prove dry and tiresome to the little child, but to study nature by copying the flowers in this marvellously adaptable material is only a beautiful game which every child, and indeed many grown people, will delight in. The form of the flower, its name and color, may, by this means, be indelibly stamped upon the memory, and a good foundation laid for further study.

Ordinary garden flowers and those most easily procured make the best models. The carnation-pink, the morning-glory, and the rarer blossoms of the hibiscus, are well adapted to the work, also the daffodil and some of the wonderful orchids.

Even holly with its sharp-spiked leaves and scarlet berries and the white-berried, pale-green mistletoe may be closely copied. All these and many more are made on the same principle and in so simple a manner even quite a little child may succeed in producing very good copies from Nature.

Buy a sheet of light pink tissue-paper, another of darker pink, and one of the darkest red you can find. Then a sheet of light yellow-green and one of dark green. Have a table "cleared for action" and place your paper on the right-hand side, adding a pair of scissors and a spool of coarse thread, or, better still, of soft darning-cotton.

With all this you are to copy the

Lay your natural flower down on the left-hand side of the table, away from your material but quite within easy reach, for it must be consulted frequently. Seat yourself comfortably and don't work hurriedly.

The first thing necessary in this system of squares and circles is to know

Cut a square the size you wish to make your circle. That is, if you want a circle with a diameter of four inches cut a four-inch square (Fig. 113). Fold the square diagonally through the centre according to the dotted line on Fig. 113, and you have the triangle (Fig. 114). Fold this at the dotted line and it will make another triangle (Fig. 115). Again fold through the middle and you have the third triangle (Fig. 116). Fold once more and Fig. 117 is the result. Measure the distance from the edge, B, to the centre A in Fig. 117 and mark the same distance on the other side of the angle shown by the dot, C (Fig. 117). With your scissors cut across from C to B, curving the edge slightly, as shown by the dotted line from C to B (Fig. 118). Fig. 119 is the circle still in its folds. Fig. 120 is the circle opened, the dotted lines indicating where it has been folded.

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.

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 last appearance or the impression of the flower that you are to produce rather than its many and separate little parts. So now to work.

From your light-green paper cut a circle measuring three and one-quarter inches through its diameter and cut it in two to make the half circle for the calyx (Fig. 126). Remove the thread that holds the flower just below its petals and wrap the calyx closely around the lower part, tying it at the bottom; then cut a narrow strip of dark-green paper and wrap it spirally around the stem, beginning at the top (Fig. 127). Let the wrapper extend a little below the lighter and twist the end to hold it in place. Spread the petals of your flower as much like the natural blossom as possible.

For the leaves cut a strip of dark-green paper six inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide (Fig. 128). Find the centre by folding the paper end to end and making the crease shown by dotted line in Fig. 128. Gather it along this line, not with needle and thread—we use no needle in this work—but with your fingers, and pinch it together; then twist each end into a point (Fig. 129). With the sharp point of your scissors punch a hole directly through the centre (E, Fig. 129), and push the point of the stem through the hole, bringing the leaves as far up on the stem as you find them on the natural flower; then wrap and tie them in place.

It is wonderful how very natural these blossoms appear. At a short distance no one would think they are not the real, old and familiar pinks. Only the fragrance is missing, and that may also be supplied and a spicy odor given by enclosing a whole clove in the heart of each flower.

From your pale-pink paper you can make the delicately beautiful morning-glory. Have the natural flower with its stem and leaves to copy from, even if the blossom is not the color you want. As with the pink, it is the general form and appearance we strive for in the morning-glory, not the detail.

Make your pink circles with a diameter of about seven inches. It is always better to have your flowers a trifle larger than the natural ones, rather than smaller.

But one circle is required for each morning-glory. Crimp this in your fingers and draw through your hand as you did the circles for the pinks; then, pinching it together to within one and one-half inches of the edge, hold it in your left hand and flatten out the top as in Fig. 133. See that the fulness is evenly distributed, and pull and straighten out the edges until you are satisfied with its appearance.

A piece of bonnet-wire makes the best stem if you wish to give the true viney effect of the growth. If it is only the blossom you are making, a paper lighter will answer. When you use the wire bend one end over to form a small loop; this is to keep the stem from slipping through the flower. Pass the straight end of the wire through the centre of the flower and draw it down until the loop is hidden.

Make

Make several buds of the pink paper, following the directions given for the green bud of the pink; then twist each bud at the point and add a calyx.

The wilted flower shown in the illustration is made by taking one of the morning-glories you have just finished and actually wilting it by drawing the flower together and creasing and pressing it to resemble the partially closed and drooping natural blossom.

Only a piece of dark-green paper six inches square is required to model two almost perfectly shaped morning-glory leaves.

Fold the square twice diagonally across from corner to corner to find its centre; then begin at one corner and gather along one of the creases until you reach the centre (Fig. 139). Start again at the opposite corner, gather along the crease to the centre, then wrap and tie (Fig. 140). Pinch each leaf from underneath along the crease in the middle, to give the depression at the midrib. Straighten the leaf out a little at its widest part and you will find you have made a pair of leaves which are surprisingly natural. Wrap and tie these to the stem and make as many more as you think are needed.

Match the tint of your natural daffodil in yellow tissue-paper as nearly as possible, and then cut two squares for each flower measuring about five and one-half inches. Fold the squares crosswise and diagonally through the centre as you did for the calyx of the morning-glory (Fig. 134), and cut one square in half along one of its diagonal folds (Fig. 141). Gather the square two and a quarter inches below each corner and tie as in Fig. 137, but do not twist the points. This gives you four petals, but as the daffodil has six, you must make two more from the triangular halves of the square you have just cut. Gather each triangle across from side to side, according to the dotted line in Fig. 141, and pinch and tie in place as in Fig. 142, making sure the petal is of exactly the same size as those on the square. Bring together the fan of paper left below the petal and wrap and tie as in Fig. 143, then cut off the ragged end (Fig. 144). Draw the petals of the square together as you did the calyx, and insert the stem made of a paper lighter. Put in place the two extra petals, pushing the wrapped ends down into the heart of the flower; fit each loose petal between two of the others and tie (Fig. 145).

Turn back to the bud of the pink (Fig. 130), and from a circle of the yellow paper, with a diameter of four inches, make the cup (Fig. 131), using the scissors to give a fine crimp to the edges. Pinch the cup together at the bottom almost half-way up and tie (Fig. 146); slip it on your finger like a thimble and press it into shape like Fig. 147. Insert the point or stem of the cup into the centre of the flower and tie in place just below the petals (Fig. 148).

Cut a two and three-quarter-inch square from light-brown paper and divide it diagonally in half for the calyx. Examine your natural daffodil and notice how loosely the calyx seems to be wrapped around the flower. Imitate this by leaving the point loose at the top, while you wrap the bottom of the calyx closely around the stem. Allow the wrapping for the stem to cover the lower part of the brown calyx. Make several long, narrow leaves from strips of dark-green paper, two inches wide and of varying lengths. Twist one end of each leaf into a point and, gathering the other end, draw it through your hands until it stands up stiffly. Wrap each leaf partly around the stem and tie in place, following as closely as possible the natural growth of the leaf on the stem. Bend the stem just below each flower, being careful not to break the paper lighter which forms it.

If you use thread the color of the flowers for tying and green for the stems the effect will be almost perfect.