Glass Fusing Project

 

Photo by Henry Will using Google Photo Scan app

The picture above is before being fused.

This picture is after being fused...

Photo by Henry Will

 This was a gift from one of our lovely daughters. She got it locally in Morristown NJ. It's a take home kit (and you can also work on projects at their shop).

They have a setup to drop things off and pick them up contact-less (even after hours), but I wanted to see the place. So, I went during business hours. They are very careful and cautious with the pandemic. It is a big place with lots of room for people to spread out. When I went, there were 3 family groups there that were spaced far apart, with masks, socially distanced, and working on various projects. 

There is loads of glass in all sizes, shapes, and colors. You can make all types of things: suncatchers, dishes, spoon rests, jewelry,etc. It looks like a very nice place to spend some time together and make something. Here's the website: https://umakeglass.com/

This was a kit to take home and work on. I waited until after Christmas day to do it. You can work on the kit at home and drop it off for fusing and then they contact you when you can pick it up (contact-less). It's a good system. Or, you can go to their studio and work on a project there if you want.

A "tip of the hat" to the Google PhotoScan app for allowing me to get a clear, no glare picture of the glass. I've used this app for many other pictures of pictures and find it performs very well. Highly recommended!

(note: my next project is a wooden pickup truck bank - I start on that today!)

I saw a very nice glass spoon rest at the shop that had a very nice flower design. Maybe that will be a future gift for someone!

What do you think about this fused glass project? What would you make out of glass?

DIY Toy Wood Camera

I was looking for a gift to make for a 1 year birthday and suggested a few things to the parents. They liked the idea of a Wood Toy Camera. I found a few posts on the internet and liked one the best. So, I somewhat fasioned it after that one.

and

and then

and then

You'll see the finished project at the top. A fun toy for a child.

DIY Wood Push Toy Duck

This is a push toy duck that was fashioned after a similar item that was purchased many years ago.
The pre-schoolers and the toddlers liked it, so I decided to make a similar one for another toddler. I used a 2" X 6" board for the body and filed the edges to smooth it. The wheels are wood too. Cut them out, drill a hole in the center (or for more fun, a little off center to help with the "waddle"). Cut a slot in each wheel and glue a "foot" in there.  I couldn't find any rubber (I didn't have any old inner tubes laying around from a bicycle), so I used a cut out piece from a black plastic binder from the local dollar store (you can see the binder in the phone below, I had to cut out a piece to fix the old duck from years ago in the picture below).

This is the one we purchased many years ago.When it's pushed, the wheels turn and there were pieces of rubber that would flap around and slap on the ground: alternating with the right, then the left. The duck waddles as it's pushed.  The rubber "feet" were lost years ago, I just cut a piece out of that plastic binder to replace them. Good as new! 

Online Games for Families and Friends

StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

We recently had fun playing a virtual escape room with family and friends. We thought it would be fun to play some games online too!

I looked for some websites and found lots of games that can be played online.

1. I like this playingcards.io site that lets you play games with a group of people. It was mentioned by a few of the following sites. It has "built in games" (like checkers, go fish, hearts, crazy-eights, backgammon, cribbage, and it also allows you to play with decks of cards, spinners and such to make your own card game (like golf (which we play by these rules, but the joker is -2 points), Kings in the corner, war,  or any card game)

2. We've played the boardgame called Code Names. It's a "spy" theme, but basically a game of trying to get your team to picks from a bunch of words which are the ones that are similar to a one-word hint you give. It's available online as CodeNames.game.

3. Our family also introduced us to "house party" - it's an app. It has built in games (like finding words, something like pictionary, and the Uno card game too).

4. Adding this one in March 2021: https://kahoot.com/ - has some trivia games you can play. Share the main screen with players over meetup or zoom or some screen sharing capable video meeting, then each person connects with the code and inputs their answers.

5. Adding this one in January 2024

Scattergories:

This game can be shared using an online video conference (like google meet or zoom or Skype) and letting people take turns trying to find words for each category that start with a specific letter. Or, for collaborative play, everyone together can try to come up with words for the given categories beginning with the given letter.

https://swellgarfo.com/scattergories/

6. Online Atari games

https://www.aarp.org/lp/games-atari/

7. Bible puzzles: word search maker, word searches, mazes, coloring sheets worksheets, crafts, and more

https://biblepuzzles.com/

8. Colorasmile :find a coloring sheet, print it, mail it and it will go to cheer someone

https://colorasmile.org/

Here's some lists of other games I found:

• Oprah Magazine: 21 Best Online Games to Play With Friends While Social Distancing
• Mentions Golf Battle (IOS and Android) and playingcards.io
  
• Good Housekeeping: 11 Fun Games to Play on Zoom That Will Amp up Your Next Virtual Party
  
• 10 Best Virtual Family Game Night Apps
• Mentions Mario Kart

 Have you played any games online with family and friends?  If so, please comment! We'd all like to hear of more games!