We found a trove of old thread spools at a yard sale today. (Anyone who’s helped their granny clean out her house probably has a similar collection.) Much of the thread was old enough to be brittle and useless for sewing, but it looked pretty on the wooden spools.
I made a set of rainbow spools for stringing on a shoelace:
I brushed over the thread with watered-down Elmer’s glue to keep the ends from unraveling. For each spool, I made a match by unwinding some of the thread and re-winding it onto an empty spool.
When Lily’s older, we could mix the spools up for her to match. Or one set could be strung on a lace and she could string the other set in the same order. Or, more likely, she could lose several of them under the sofa and they won’t match any more, but I can dream.
I also made a group of spools from blues and greens that just look pretty together.
I also finished a couple of board books I had been working on. I bought some board books at the thrift store, painted them white, and pasted in photos I got off the internet and had printed.
One book is about the Boston transit system, with pages for the different subway lines, bus, and commuter trains. If she’s anything like her father she is due to be obsessed with trains very soon.
I also made a book about how our family celebrates Passover.
Making the books was kind of a pain, since the paint I used didn’t cover the book surface well and I had to do a lot of coats. By the end I was aiming for completion rather than perfection. It would be more expensive but easier to do the same with one of the websites that will print board books for you.
The whole sky 