WAY TOO COOL!

A crafty friend... Free. A little time... Free. A little water... (mostly) Free. Several evenings of explosive fun with the kids... PRICELESS!

Last year a friend of mine saw some plans online for a project that he thought his nieces and nephews would enjoy. He gave it a shot and built it. His nieces and nephews had a blast. He refined the project in a few stages and the thing just took off. In the end, he made one for my kids as well.

It was a water rocket! With a few pieces of PVC, a few miscellaneous parts, and a 2 liter soda bottle, he built a contraption that will send a rocket over 100 feet in the air – a FUN, SAFE, REALLY COOL contraption that will SEND A ROCKET INTO THE AIR OVER ONE HUNDRED FEET! FAST!

The kids and I have spent several hours launching the bottle, trying to get it higher, trying to catch it when it falls, showing off to neighbors, talking (if only for a few minutes) about the science behind the project, and generally just having fun – and getting wet!

Thought I haven't built it myself (yet), the plans look pretty straight forward and easy to follow. The parts are inexpensive and easy to find at any Home Depot, Lowes, etc. I think that the kids and I will try to make another rocket (maybe incorporating some of the suggestions listed on the sites) soon. I think that the building process will be almost as much fun, and give them a greater appreciation of how it all works.

Thanks again Jeff -- from all of us!

The original(?) plans can be found here on the This Old House site.

dot-a-dot

I recently came across an article at WeeWonderfuls that describes an "artistic endeavor" that I used to partake in. Essentially, you drop a pencil or marker tip first onto blank paper in random places. Then you go back and connect the dots to form an enclosed shape. The you let your imagination run wild and turn that shape into something - a dragon, a bird, a witch, a monster, anything you can imaging - by adding other details like eyes, feet, mouth, etc. You end up with a wonderful Dr. Seussical creation. Give it a try next time you're bored and need to let some of your creativity spill out.

Hint: use a felt tip instead of a pencil if you do it in meetings as the pencil tends to be a little too loud hitting the table :-) Lesson learned.

Post it!

When I worked at my last assignment, someone decided that the deal on Post-It notes was too good of a deal to pass up. We had HUNDREDS of packs of Post-Its in the supply room -- all shapes and sizes and colors!

I kinda liked it, but I was never as creative as these guys have been in their use of Post-Its...

Paper Crafts

Every once in a while I get the itch to do something crafty. This past week, I turned to the PaperToys website for some relief. It is my youngest son's birthday next week and we had a Cars party for him. We had the obligatory characters, but I thought I'd play with a few more generic models as well.

At PaperToys, they have all sorts of models you can build out of paper. All provided free of course. Everything from a model of the Empire State Building to a model of the Sphynx to a Stealth Aircraft. They also had some pretty cool cars that I thought I'd try my hands at.

Some of their models are pretty easy (they have a Santa I thought was pretty cool and easy a few years ago), but for some reason, the ones I chose to occupy my time with this time seemed a little harder than I remember. Maybe it's just my aging fingers. A lot of cutting and a little glue later, I had 5 cars that my kids played with for the afternoon before they got crushed -- I suggest printing the templates on card stock so that they last a little longer :-)

Take a look! They've got quite a collection. They do custom work as well if your company's interested in something really unique!