Cousin's Crane Making Party

This past Saturday we gathered at my house to continue making cranes for my daughter Aria's upcoming wedding next June.  Several of my cousins who live out of town and out of state were here to help us make origami paper cranes, each crane representing wishes for a long and happy marriage.

We had a great time sitting around the table, laughing, eating and drinking and making lots of cranes.  Several cousins brought their own colorful papers  which differ from the planned colors for the wedding but all the cranes look  so pretty together that I think we can blend them all into a cohesive and beautiful arrangement.  Hope Aria will be pleased.  Here's a peek at our crane making party and brunch.

While we folded the papers we reminisced about the times are mother's gathered together to make cranes for our weddings.

Cousin Pati from Vermont made us laugh so much. Everytime she got to a certain point in folding the crane she would say: "Look I made an Iris."  "Noooo Pati" we'd respond "keep going we're making cranes not flowers!"

We watched "Tea for Texas" a family video about our grandmother and grandfather's Japanese tea garden in Texas. There are scenes in the video where all our moms were sitting at a table making cranes two decades ago for my cousin Jan's wedding. 

My sister in law Barb brought samples and instruction books

Cousin Nancy from the bay area

Nancy and Jocelyn were also busy writing "haiku" poems* to go with the days activities. I include them at the end of this post. 

*The form for writing haiku is three lines of thought. Line one has 5 syllables, line two has 7 and line three  has 5 again. Our family loves to write haikus for every occasion. It's tradition with us!

My sister Jocelyn

Cousin Jan from San Diego

We listened to music by "Los Panchos".  The spanish words and tunes reminded us of our mother's time in Texas.   For me the song "Sin Ti" has special meaning as it was one of my moms favorites and Sin Ti means "Without You". 

My cousin Nancy brought these for me as a little hostess gift. They are new gift items sold at the family Jingu home in the Japanese Tea Garden in San Antonio.  

Time for brunch!

Sisters Peg and Ann

Sisters Pati and Jan

The two Barbs

After brunch, time to get back to crane making...

Ohhh Joce don't work too hard!

Pati says:  "Hey look it's another Iris!

Stefanie did some sample stringing together of the cranes. They looked so pretty!

We had a great time making cranes for the wedding!

Cheers Aria!  

Haikus   by Jocelyn and Nancy in honor of this special crane making family gathering:


"Los Padres music
Tea for Texas inspires
Sin Ti memories"

"Many steps to crane 
Mimosas flow like water
Pati makes iris"

We sort of veered off track of the wedding colors so here's the haiku for that :

"Origami cranes
Forget the brides color scheme
Bead at the bottom."