Wordless Wednesday: Evening on Elk Fork Lake

Crafty Ladies, and Kids Too

Two of my sisters came to visit over the Fourth of July weekend, and Theresa even brought along her son, his wife and their three children. After the race on Saturday and the evening cookout and fireworks (more about both later) we were ready to settle down and be quiet on Sunday.

Both sisters have gardens and both love lavender, so we decided to make lavender wands. My lavender was a little past its prime but still fine for making wands so we cut a lot of stems and set to work. The concept was new to Susan, Theresa's daughter-in-law, but she was willing to give it a try. In the end, she outdid all of us, making a wand that was braided with three different color ribbons.

Hope, her granny Theresa and her mother Susan all work on wands.

I had some large glass beads in a bowl on the porch that I'd been thinking about using to make suncatchers. The beads were leftovers from a craft project I will be doing at a couple libraries this summer--the smaller beads in the packages I bought were fine but the big ones were just, well, TOO big. With so many willing hands available, it felt like just the right time to make the suncatchers. We used electric fence wire to string them and everyone picked out whatever combination of beads they wanted on their suncatcher.

Hope and her little brother Cade look hard at work, don't they?

My sister Maggie made the prettiest one, I think, in "ocean" shades, as she called it, and indeed the soft turquoises, blues, greens and clear beads were reminiscent of the ocean's colors. I wish I had taken pictures of the finished products because they were both imaginative and colorful. And all my beads were used, which made me happy. Maybe I will remember to post a photo one day of the ones I made myself. I bought the beads from Fire Mountain's online clearance sale and got a great deal on them; I made up over100 craft packets for my programs and still had about 50 or more of these big beads left.

When we were looking for ribbons for the lavender wands, Hope spied my box of supplies for spoon puppets. Of course we had to make those too!

Theresa was a good sport about helping with the finer bits of work--Garrett's puppet was colorful, with a metallic green dress and purple-pink hair. According to him and to Hope, they were making puppets to go with my story "Gracie's Cabin"--Garrett's puppet is Crazy Gracie, he told me.

Hope managed to do most of her puppet by herself. She made Annie Rose, I think, from the same story.

And here's Hope's finished product. To make these silly puppets, you only need a wooden spoon, some fabric about the size of a man's handkerchief, scissors to cut a tiny hole in the exact center of the cloth, some tape to hold the cloth around the stick after you put the stick through the hole, some glue (fast-drying is best!) to hold yarn hair in place, and markers, stickers, etc to make the face. In this case, we used peel-and-stick foam shapes. You can add ribbon, sequins, and all sorts of other things to decorate the puppets. To use them, just slip your hand under the cloth, hold the spoon handle with three fingers and stick out your thumb and index finger to make "arms" under the cloth. Simple, simple and yet I have seen children make the most amazing creations with these simple supplies.The spoons can be found at dollar stores, 4 or 5 in a package for $1.

It was a fun Sunday afternoon and evening, and when we were finished the kids had something to play with and the ladies had cool things to take home. And I had a little less stuff in my house, which is always a good thing.

If you need better instructions for making spoon puppets, try this book. It's the one I learned from and it has lots of other great ideas for making puppets with things you might have around the house. With the heat wave we're having right now, finding things for the kids to do in the house might be a good way to keep them occupied since it's too hot to be outdoors.

(Blogger has evidently made some big changes over the weekend, so please excuse any oddities about the placement of photos and text, etc in my recent posts. It's been a weird experience!).

Book Review: The Double Comfort Safari Club

It's hot right now in West Virginia, good weather for finding a porch with a ceiling fan and a rocking chair. Add a good book and a tall, cool glass of sweet tea and you've found comfort even in the heat of the day. If the book you select is the latest title by Alexander McCall Smith and is part of the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, you've found double comfort--which is part of the title of the newest entry into the Botswana-based stories about the now legendary Mma Ramotswe.

The Double Comfort Safari Club, like other titles in the series, is not a major crime mystery or even a murder story. The reader follows the leisurely pace of Botswanian life as Precious Ramotswe and her assistant detective Grace Makutsi unravel more common but no less complicated predicaments in the lives of their neighbors and friends. For instance, how to find a safari guide who has been left a large gift--when the giver does not know the name of the guide? Affairs of the heart and of business are the meat of these stories but there is little sentimentality in them, or ruthlessness except on the part of the "bad guys." Mma Ramotswe tackles the most sensitive of problems, such as finding out if a man is indeed having an affair, and with whom, with tact, skill, and occasionally a bit of luck.

I listened to the first book on CD in my car and I am glad that I did because I learned how to pronounce the names of people and places correctly. Not all are easy to figure out in print, and trying to figure them out phonetically will not always be successful. I suppose it really doesn't matter if a reader pronounces Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's name improperly in the reading however, because his mild, thoughtful nature will be evident no matter how his name is pronounced.

The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series made me long for a cup of good red bush tea even thought I have never tasted it and have no idea what it might taste like--it surely has restorative powers beyond that of ordinary tea if Mma Ramotswe is to be believed. A friend traveled to Botswana in part because of these books because she needed to see such a land for herself. McCall Smith acknowledges in these stories that the old, courteous ways are slowly dying out, and yet those very ways have captured the imaginations of thousands of readers. We could all use a Mma Ramotswe in our lives--traditionally built, comfortable, sensible, and sensitive, a woman who speaks truth gently but directly, and who always gets to the heart of any problem and solves it by the end of the book.