Over in the Meadow

Sweetpea's Book of Colors finally shipped from the printer. I'm not as thrilled with it as I was with Sweetpea's ABC Book, which I did first. But, it's done, and now I'm thinking of a counting book.

A few days ago I pulled all of my origami books out of the closet, so I could do some origami for my 366 Photos in 2008 blog, since "origami" is one of the themes. Most of these books were gifts from our Japanese exchange students, so they are not in English. For the most part, though, the diagrams are understandable without the text. I ended up folding some blossoms on a branch, and had a lot of fun with it. And that's when the idea came to me to try something different for Sweetpea's Counting Book. Instead of using photography, I thought I might do origami animals, to illustrate the traditional "Over in the Meadow" song.

Yesterday afternoon I started trying to fold the frog. What a disaster! I understood the directions, but my folds just didn't come out neat and clean like in the diagram. I must have tried six or seven times to fold a perfect frog, each time without success. I might, eventually, be able to fold one handsome frog, but, according to the song, I'll need "a green mother frog and her little froggies nine." That's TEN frogs! I probably should rethink this idea, but it's still intriguing to me, and I think I'll give it a little more time and effort before I abandon it. Wish me luck. I'll need it. After the frogs come "a gray mother spider and her little spiders ten."