Charm Your Tree with Klutz: Make Clay Charms

You might remember how I went kind of crazy for Make Clay Charms a while back. I brought it up to a cottage weekend and all hands got busy, molding, sculpting, and baking charms to put on pretty much everything we owned. It was a blast!

Well, it turns out that the Canadian Toy Testing Council agrees, because this cute little craft is a Children’s Choice winner for 2014! To celebrate this victory of one of my favourite Klutz kits, I decided it was time to indulge in my obsession again. I broke out Make Clay Charms and charmed up a tree in honour of two of my favourite things: Christmas and Catching Fire!

That’s right; I am feeling the Hunger Games fever with the latest and greatest movie adaptation. I’m trimming my tree with the Christmas classics, along with flames, nightlock berries, and cute mini-book covers, all made of clay!

Merry Christmas and a very happy Hunger Games to all!

It's Kind of a Funny Story

One warm summer day at the cottage, we decided to put on a family-wide tournament of skills, complete with shiny new trophies and endless bragging rights up for grabs. Everyone divided up into teams of two, and my dad and I were paired together. We put on a good show at the kayak races, relayed our way to the finish line, and ate our way to second place, but it wasn't until the paper airplane competition that we truly had victory in our sights. 

See, in his university days, my dad and his engineering buddies created a foolproof paper airplane, able to soar through the air with the greatest of ease, so he assured me we had this one in the bag. He folded out his perfect plane as we snickered knowingly at the lesser creations of all of our opponents. Little did he know that his foolproof plane was no match for his klutzy daughter. 

As we lined up along the balcony, my dad shouted last minute pointers at me from the ground; keep your arm strong, hold the plane pointed up, make sure to follow through. Filled with one too many tips, I cleared my head and just went for it. This approach was quickly proven wrong as our plane sputtered in mid-air then quickly took a nosedive down to the ground. I was crestfallen. My dad was confused. He'd had had so much confidence in the power of his plane and I had failed to make it fly. I knew he was frustrated and I felt horribly for having let him down.

I haven’t picked up a paper airplane since…

So, you can imagine my trepidation when presented with The Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes. Though it boasted that launching a regular old piece of paper into the sky was nothing short of pure magic, all I could envision was a repeat of my pathetic previous performance.
  
Luckily, Klutz, and my dad, were there to hold my hand. With illustrated instructions for folding and throwing ten perfect paper planes, as well as throw charts, safe fly zones, and a crash course in flight, how could I fail?

We sorted through the 40 sheets of cool patterned paper and set to work folding out our fleet. As I learned about lift versus gravity, thrust versus drag and elevators and ailerons, my dad’s long ago, last minute advice—and the logic behind it—finally fell into place. I was ready for action! I took a deep breath, wound up and threw, and was delighted as my planes soared around the living room while my dad cheered me on. 

Fun with the family, a little bit of learning and a second chance at glory? Sounds pretty magical to me!

Story Book Horses

I think we’ve known each other long enough that I can share with you a truth that I sometimes keep hidden. It is a very polarizing opinion of mine, and one that has changed more than one person’s perception of me…

I am not an animal person.

I get why people swoon over cute and cuddly creatures, share an affinity for slithery reptiles, and fawn over our fine feathered friends. I’m just not one of them!

Luckily, this feeling doesn’t necessarily apply to animals of the paper persuasion. Couple that with my overpowering love of fashion, and I was actually kind of excited to delve into The Marvelous Book of Magical Horses. And if that wasn’t enough to carry me through, not long after cracking open that first page, I found inspiration in another love of mine.

I mean, come on, could this dark and fiery beauty be any other than The Hunger Games heroine Katniss Everdeen in horse form? All dark and moody, with a flaming mane and Mockingjay pin... Okay, I added that last one in myself, but that's the fun of these magical horses. There are tons of beautiful outfits to choose from, but you can also add your own embellishment and flair. And with peel and stick tabs, once you’ve had your fun, you can take it all off and start over and over again.

After dressing up Katniss Horse to do Cinna proud, I began to search for other literary characters on each punch-out page. Can you guess which story book horses I've created? Share your answers and your own awesome equine creations in the comments.