If there's one thing everybody knows about Queen Poppy, it's that she loves scrapbooking. She immortalizes even the most mundane events in glitter and colored paper—it's that important to her.
But if there was anything she loved more than scrapbooking, it's scrapbooking with others. She had been so excited when Sunshine saw one of her crafts for the first time and seemed fascinated by the intricate colors and shapes. Imagine how over the moon she had been when Sunshine decided that she wanted to learn how to scrapbook, too.
The four-year-old trolling was sitting at a desk in Poppy's pod, poising herself to cut out a paper troll she had just traced (don't worry, she was using safety scissors). "Careful," Poppy said, looking over the child's shoulder, "If there are a few stray lines, that's okay."
Sunshine had the paper figure almost halfway cut out when she slipped up, cutting its head clean off. "Ooh," Poppy joked, "So close."
Sunshine didn't see the funny side of it as she crumpled up the remaining scraps of paper and angrily tossed them into the overflowing trash can. They had both lost count of how many paper trolls she had accidentally severed of their appendages. "I can't do this, Poppy," she sulked, "I'll never be a good scrapbooker like you!"
"You may not be as good as me," Poppy said, placing a hand on her shoulder, "But you definitely never will be if you just give up. Just because something is hard, that doesn't make it impossible. You just need a little bit of help and a lot more practice."
She encouraged Sunny to trace another troll body, then took her hand that held the scissors and guided it slowly around the outline. "Don't snip until you've gone all the way around, okay," she corrected her. Once they had gotten the troll completely cut out, Sunshine took a marker and drew a smiling face on the head.
After gluing it to the scrapbook page, Poppy began clapping and cheering for Sunny. "See," she said, hugging her, "I told you that you could do it. Pretty soon, you'll be able to do it all by yourself." Pulling one of her own scrapbooks out of a drawer, she added, "And maybe one day, you can make something like this." She opened it up to a pop-up page filled with cutouts of herself and her friends, a voice cheering the word, "Congratulations!" as it shot out a mini confetti cannon of glitter.
Her chest grew warm with pride as Sunshine giggled; she loved to see the little girl happy and confident again. The child told Poppy she wanted to practice on her own a bit before bed, so the queen went off to start her own nighttime routine, telling Sunshine to call her if she needed help.
She had showered, put on pajamas, and brushed her teeth, then went back to Sunny's room to check on her. She found the trolling with her head rested on the desk, a soft snore (and some drool) escaping her lips. Poppy chuckled, shaking her head, before walking up to her and checking her scrapbooking progress.
She had drawn a few more outlines, but hadn't gotten around to cutting them yet; Poppy wondered if she was scared to do it herself yet. On the page she had left open, she had made a little rainbow out of pipe cleaners right above the finished paper troll. The colors were not in the correct order, but she'd learn. All in all, she was already getting better at it.
Carefully picking Sunshine up, Poppy wrapped her in a blanket, tucked her into bed, and kissed her goodnight.
She would have to tell her how proud she was in the morning.
…
It's ideas like this that make me wish I could draw lol.
Also, I feel compelled to apologize for these not being in chronological order. That's just how the ideas are coming to me.