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Monday, October 22, 2012

Fun with Crepe Paper


We recently helped decorate for a friend's birthday party and someone raised the possibility that crepe paper might be...  TACKY!  I had to stop and think for a moment.  Crepe paper, tacky?  Certainly not!

Now, I am not talking about decorating for a State Dinner here.  I am thinking about parties, simple, fun, jolly parties that call for a little whimsy and that sort of informal charm that comes to mind when we thing of the kind of retro parties depicted in the many Kodachrome slides of the great Charles Phoenix.  Men and women, girls and boys, dressed in their mid-century party best getting together in the rumpus room for an evening of canasta, cake and Coca-Cola or maybe a singalong with Mitch.

I remember fondly a crepe paper "room" created in our my grade school library each year.  It was the special reading place for the annual read-a-thon and inside the crepe paper walls sat a large, comfy chair in which each student was allowed to sit, silently reading, for thirty minutes.  I loved that library all of the time, but never more than during that read-a-thon!



But even today, there has to be room for things like crepe paper and those delightful honeycomb tissue bells and balls and pumpkins!  And, what about crepe paper flowers?  My great-grandmother was the go to person for the endless flowers, made from Dennison crepe paper, needed to decorate the high school gym when it was time for a dance or a prom.  Looking at the vintage how to book on the topic leaves one amazed at the beautiful blooms that could be created from such modest materials!



I suppose it's more than just crepe paper I am talking about here.  Perhaps it's a little longing for a somewhat simpler time when birthday parties were held at home among a sea of balloons and festively twisted streamers (I was always so impressed when TWO colors were twisted together!), or Christmas decorations weren't so pretentious that a large, red, tissue paper bell would look terrible out of place.  As for me?  I am going out to find some crepe paper!  How about black and orange for Halloween?!

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