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The Garden of Live Flowers
Valentine’s Day Extra Credit

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Supplies:
1 package of multicolored tissue or crepe paper
1 package of green pipe cleaners
Scissors

Directions: Take four to five sheets of the tissue paper and layer them (if you want multicolored flowers, use different colors). Cut into 8-inch squares. Keeping the sheets layered, take one set of squares and fold it like an accordion so it looks like a thin rectangle. At the center of the rectangle, cut a small v-shaped notch on both sides. Take the end of a pipe cleaner and twist it around the notch. With the stem pointing straight down, gently pull up one layer of tissue into the center. Pull up the remaining layers, one by one. Repeat for the other side of the flower. Once all the layers are pulled up, fluff them in place to look natural. Continue making more flowers with the remaining stacks of squares.

Tips and variations: For sturdier stems, wrap two pipe cleaners together. Cut smaller or larger squares to change the size of your flowers. Add more layers for thicker flowers or less layers for thinner ones. For a shiny effect, dip the top edges in white glue and then dip in loose glitter. Glue a pin on the back of a flower for a fluffy lapel decoration. Make smaller flowers and string them together as garland.

“O Tiger-lily!” said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, “I wish you could talk!”
“We can talk,” said the Tiger-lily, “when there’s anybody worth talking to.”[2]

Flowers play an important role in the traditional Valentine’s gift. Although they are usually taken for granted, their absence is noticed.

A rose is usually given on Valentine’s Day, but the color, shape, and number convey many messages. Although flowers cannot speak in our world as they do through the looking-glass, they say many things through their presentation.

Take, for example, the color of roses given on Valentine’s Day: red, pink, and yellow. Each color says something different. Red is associated with love, pink with appreciation, and yellow with friendship. If the flower itself were to be other than a rose, that would suggest many other meanings. The choice in flowers and color depicts the feelings the giver wants to express.

When I looked up the history of giving flowers, most of the sites had the same thing written:

Giving flowers on St. Valentine’s Day first became popular in the 17th century. Roses, having the distinction of representing love in all its forms, are the blossoms of choice on Valentine’s Day. The rose was reputed to be the favourite flower of Venus, and so it was dubbed the flower of passion and love. One single perfect red rose framed with baby’s breath is referred to by some florists as a “signature rose,” and is the preferred choice for giving on St. Valentine’s Day.

I’m not really sure how this applies to Victorian literature, but Carroll shows how particular he is to certain types of flowers, just as Venus was. He changes the passion flower to a tiger lily because of its connotation, chooses the daisies for their changing petal colors, and refers to the younger Liddell sisters to flowers that represent their names.