Little pieces of paper: Why scissors were banned in our house

For my Dad: today I made a lot of little pieces of paper.

On Thursday night, I posted this picture as my Day 35 of #100happydays.  Since only my siblings understood why it was funny and would make my Dad crazy, I thought I would provide a backstory.

My dad hates little pieces of paper.

It began innocently enough: we were children and my mother was trying to keep us occupied and out of trouble by giving us crafts to do. Being that until I was a teen I was in a LOT of trouble ALL the time, this was no small feat.

Mom's version of keeping us busy involved handing us the Sears catalogue, a handful of blank paper, Lepage's glue (with the awesome rubber tip), and the largest scissors in the house.

Sears catalogue delivery was my favourite day. We rifled through the thick pages looking at all the pretty things we would never have and ooh-ing and aah-ing over the stylish models.

Did I mention we were poor and sheltered? Stylish models, indeed.

Once we had thoroughly scoured all the things we wanted, the catalogue would go to the side to wait for craft day. I feel like craft day was a lot of the time, but it's possible my memory has expanded the experience as I cannot believe we really had that many catalogues.  We did deliver them to the neighbourhood though, so it's possible we snagged extras.

Mom sat each of us around the table and set us to work. Heads down, elbows up, silence and concentration the words.

Armed with my dangerous scissors and a dream, I scoured the catalogue for people and things. I chose beautiful women and cut them out. I picked the perfect bedroom suite (with ruffled edged pillows) and couches with plaid.  I glued the furniture onto a piece of paper and then used the cut-out woman to enact glorious scenes of utmost importance.

I also had one entire page of toys I wanted.  You know, just in case it happened someone was interested in what I liked.

By the end of the day, my Dad would come home from his magical world of the office where he went to escape the children. We were content in our creations and, I am sure, anxious to share this with him.

He would take one look around, shake his head, and jokingly ask "What? Were we out of little pieces of paper?"

The floor beneath us was covered with the (slightly sticky) bits of paper we had discarded in our artistic process. Even cleaning them up, we would find them days later stuck to the bottom of our socks or in the living room carpet.

It became a life long joke in our family. Each of us continue to be crafty (well, maybe less so my brother. He does MANLY things) so there is always a chance someone will come home and ask if we had run out.

Now it's The Guy's turn.