Origami: it's harder than you might think!

Dustin and I just celebrated our 1 year anniversary!  As many of you know, each anniversary is traditionally paired with an item or material.  The first anniversary is 'Paper'.  How appropriate!  Unless you are an heir to a family fortune, or a rare breed that lands a hugely successful job straight out of school, OR are even luckier and hit the lottery, your first year of marriage is likely marked by tight budgets and living paycheck to paycheck trying to figure out how to finance the life of a 'big kid' while balancing all your wants and gimmies.  Because of this, it is unlikely to have a handful of money to spend on a lavish celebration of, let's face it, surviving a year of new experiences as a married couple.  But paper... everybody has paper!  So paper it is!

Dustin and I decided (or rather, Dustin was tricked into participating) to take this milestone quite literally and celebrate with paper.  We pulled out some paper from my craft stash and searched for an easy origami pattern to attempt.  Quickly, we discovered that there is no such thing as an 'easy' origami pattern.

Our first effort was to make a rose.  This began with approximately 20 folds into a square piece of paper... and ended at that!  Dustin tried to connect with his inner asian, attempting the next steps, but quickly realized that he does not have an inner asian.  The rose pattern and instructions were scrapped and we moved onto a google search for 'easy origami for kids'.  This search produced a much less complicated flower pattern with pictures and detailed instructions.  Thanks to the kid-friendly origami we finally succeeded at creating our mostly recognizable flowers.

The adventure with origami taught us a few things.  First, origami is much harder than you might think.  Second, we are not as good at following directions as we think.  Third, I am better at following directions than Dustin.  : )  And finally, Dustin loves me enough to sit around on our anniversary folding paper.

Here is a look at our creations.  I'll let you guess which one is mine and which one is Dustin's!   : )