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I come from Baguio, a place abound with flowers all year long. I was assigned to teach in Cuyo, Palawan, an island where flowers don’t grow due to the coastal climate and strong seasonal winds.

But on All Saint’s day in Cuyo, flowers are abloom! To be exact, handmade paper flowers are abloom! Paper flowers meticulously crafted using colorful crepe paper, Japanese paper, gift wrapping paper or sometimes foil. Beautiful, these handmade works of art!

They come in various shapes, sizes, colors and designs. Roses are common, but could you imagine carnations and mums and liliums and anthuriums made of paper?!

I’ve seen some of these flowers being made. My Cuyonin students and co-teachers would fold, cut, paste, roll, insert, shape or color the paper in all sorts of ways. It was amazing how these works of art came alive right before my eyes.

I tried my hand too with the craft and came up with an avant garde flower — a cross-breed between a rose and a crumpled piece of paper.

The craft of making paper flowers was introduced through a local school of arts and trades. But over the years, the local talent and creativity has increased the numbes of paper flower “species” many-fold.

When God gave flowers to Baguio and fish to the Cuyo group of islands, I think God made sure that the Cuyonins had the talent to take matters into their own hands and make flowers with their own hands.

Beauty. Ah, God is good.

ka edong
the paper wait
moblogging on halloween

Related Link: order flowers - try flower delivery from www.proflowers.com. Fresher than florists flowers.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 31st, 2005 at 7:17 pm and is filed under Palawan, Travel Oddities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.