🌷 Dreams in the Lilac Gardens...

III. My Lovely Garden [Part 2]

Thelymitra's continual love for gardening was both a blessing found in having a hobby that brought the bao true joy, and a curse in having so many beautiful flowers with so few people to enjoy them with! Of course, the bao had spent his time enjoying their lively blooms to the fullest, whether that be done by smelling the roses (literally), taking a nap among the tulips, or spending hours sketching down their floral likeness in his journal and taking notes! No matter how it was done, it was certain that Thely was giving love to these flowers with all of his heart. It just simply pained him to not have anyone to share their beauty with! His previous tea parties had been a wonderful event, and he was so happy to have gotten to enjoy good company and tasty tea experiment. But face it, there was only so much tea one bao could drink without getting a tummy ache! It would seem Thelymitra would have to device another purpose for all these flowers, and of course when this bao wanted to learn something new, he turned to the library!

A quick trip to his own personal library and a few armfuls of books about flowers ended up fetching him a few new ideas to try! Only this time, one in particular stood out to him; papermaking! More specifically, papermaking using plant pulp and incorporating the use of petals for flecks of colors! By blending down a mix of leaves and recycled paper you could create a pulp to make fresh sheets from! Then you add dried and pressed flower in for decoration, making paper that would be perfect for scrapbooking, decorating, or even taking notes on; one of Thelymitra's favorite things!

Of course, the bao set to work right away having gathered plenty of flower byproducts during the last couple of weeks of gardening! The real tricky part was finding scrap paper to blend into the mix... he had to scavenge high and low but ended up finding some pages he'd discarded from his notes due to mistakes or accidents. Using the combination of scraps, flower stems and the dried petals, he was able to make a beautiful-looking mixture by blending and adding water. He had spent some more time making screens for gathering the mixture on and a small area where newly made pages would be set aside to dry!

After a few hours of hard work, the bao had made a good twenty pages, currently being pressed down flat to dry using the very books he'd learned to do this in! Thely couldnt wait to begin using his homemade paper in his botany journal.