Thank-you bookmarks
& homemade marble mazes
We are back, and even Harriet is happy to be home (she had an intense, post-car nap desire to be “dropped off” at Mamie & Grampa’s on our 7-hour journey home from Virginia). We hope you all had—and are still having—a nice holiday, full of rest and fun and cookies.
We have a couple of easy crafty ideas for you today.
The first is a twist on thank-you cards—why not make a thank-you bookmark instead? Just cut watercolor or other thick paper into strips, and draw or paint “thank you” or another message in fancy letters on the front. On the back, you have room to write your message—useful and long-lasting, plus it fits in a standard-size envelope!
Harriet and I experimented with wax-resist painting for ours, and made a sort of starry night scene with glued-on origami paper moons and stars. We sealed it with Mod Podge and let it dry.
The second idea is more of a fun activity for an at-home, chilled-out New Year’s Eve and is an activity Bea first tried at Clapping Hands Farm camp. It’s a homemade marble run!
You’ll need:
-a cardboard box lid or lids (shoe box tops work great)
-bottle tops, old straws, cardboard scraps, corks, and other obstacles
-popsicle sticks are useful
-hot glue
-a marble
Take your box lids (or even a clean pizza lid) and plan a maze for your marble—the popsicle sticks, turned on their sides, are especially useful for making narrow passageways for the marble (think about a pinball game!).
I also had the idea to make points on the cardboard with construction paper or just marbles—if you run your marble over them, you get more points (which can be more or less complicated to practice math facts?).
Carefully glue in your maze obstacles, let it dry, then challenge a friend with a marble and your maze. Can they make it through, just by tilting the maze?
We hope you make it through this challenging time safely and with peace and health and coziness—and a good book, of course. (Mamie recommends Mavis Gallant’s Collected Stories, I just started Tove Jansson’s The True Deceiver, and Bea is blazing through Temple Alley Summer on the advice of a staff pick at Flyleaf Books).
Bea also wants you to know that she is planning a post on how to welcome orchids to your home.
P.S. If you’re looking to make a year-end gift, why not give some support…
to Cheri Beasley’s nationally crucial senate campaign?
Or to Clapping Hands Farm’s scholarship fund, which has matching funders waiting to double your gift through tonight? (Clapping Hands Farm is our beloved local camp, with a no-one-turned-away policy, a diverse and brilliant staff, and the best all-outdoors games and fun.)
(Pictured at the top: the star of Walkerton!)
Happy New Year, Frog Troublers! See you in 2022!
Please continue to spread the word to your friends and family—we appreciate it so much!