Stringing You Along

Last Summer, our little neighbor left a note telling her fairies what she liked to do… Soccer, gymnastics, rollerblading. She asked what Pansy and Poppy liked to do. They said they liked to skip rope – and were VERY good at it!

(We also told her we liked to swim – stay tuned for the pretty neat “swimming pond” I made.)

(As always, you can click on any image to open it in a pop-up gallery)

Making these tiny skip ropes was a piece of cake. Yes a piece of cake was ACTUALLY involved!  I bought a cake at the bakery. This awesome red and white striped string was tied around the box. I kept the string. I always keep the string. I never throw ANYTHING out. I can blame my mother and grandmother for that…

Then one day, the light bulb went off. There really WAS a purpose to saving that string (other than creating a delightful tangle in the junk drawer, that is). I cut the string to a length of about 5 or 6 inches. I found some old copper wire in the garage that we carefully cut and slid the rubber casing off of. If you don’t have any rubber coated wired, I’m sure you could come up with something else. A long-ish bead, maybe some kind of tube pasta, a little bit of fimo… Anyway, then the business of getting the string through your handle. I fished the string through with a tiny crochet hook, because I just happen to have every size of crochet hook ever made, right down to the teeny tiniest. But I bet you could also do it with a darning needle with a big eye. Or, tightly tie a piece of regular thread around the string and pull it through the handle. Tie a knot at each end of the string. Tada! Fairy skipping ropes.

(For those of you wondering what The Calgary Stampede is – it’s Canada’s most famous rodeo, held every July in Calgary, Alberta… home of the 1988 Winter Olympics.)

The fairies had not left a note for her for almost a whole week – so naturally they must have been away on vacation somewhere! They went to the Stampede because they heard there was “roping”.

Unfortunately it was calf roping and not skip roping… but they had fun anyway!

(Oh – and by the way – back in September I mentioned the latest craze … adult coloring books.   Lucky me, I got one for Christmas!  AND, yes, just as I thought – I DO love it!  

Are you feeling stressed out?  I highly recommend you get yourself a coloring book!)