Did you have a good holiday? Did you receive some nice gifts? I’ll bet you got a few clunkers. Those are the gifts, like Great-Aunt Matilda’s polka-dotted knitted shawl, that you know you will never use. It’s hard just to say thank you for them!
Why not get your friends together for a "White Elephant" gift exchange? Have everyone bring their unwanted gifts and place them on a table. Put a small sheet of paper next to each one and let everyone bid on the items. The highest bid wins, with the proceeds going to a charity of your choice. Any remaining items can be taken to a second-hand store or a donation center like the Salvation Army or Goodwill.
Hopefully, you will walk away with a new gift that you really want, with the satisfaction of knowing that you saved an item from the trash. Remember, reusing things is always in style!
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Monday, December 10, 2007
The science behind gingerbread houses
Are you planning to make a gingerbread house this holiday season? Before you mix up that first batch of dough, think about the wonderful ways that building a house can teach science.
Whether you make your dough from scratch or make your gingerbread using a boxed mix, you measure out your ingredients and mix them together prior to baking. Following a recipe is similar to how a scientist follows steps when conducting an experiment. Failure to follow the steps correctly can lead to a failed experiment or, in this case, poor building material!
Before you make your house, you must plan your design carefully. A friend of mine used to map her designs out on graph paper to ensure that they were built to scale. Make sure that all of your walls will be the same height. Good planning and measuring of your design is critical to gingerbread house success. You don’t want your house to lean to one side.
Next, you must execute your plan by cutting out the pieces of gingerbread and carefully constructing the house. Are your walls load-bearing? Will they support the roof? One year, I built a lovely gingerbread house and then tried to attach a roof that was heavily coated in gumdrops. The walls of my house buckled under the weight. I had to admit, gumdrop shingles proved to be a poor design choice. I should have gone with a lighter candy.
Finally, you need to recover from any setbacks and keep going when things go wrong. This lesson in tenacity is always helpful for scientific study (when things often go awry). The year that my roof caved in, I decided that my house had an open-air design and really didn’t need a roof anyway!
Check out these great tips on Building a Gingerbread House from veteran home-builder Bob Vila’s crew.
Whether you make your dough from scratch or make your gingerbread using a boxed mix, you measure out your ingredients and mix them together prior to baking. Following a recipe is similar to how a scientist follows steps when conducting an experiment. Failure to follow the steps correctly can lead to a failed experiment or, in this case, poor building material!
Before you make your house, you must plan your design carefully. A friend of mine used to map her designs out on graph paper to ensure that they were built to scale. Make sure that all of your walls will be the same height. Good planning and measuring of your design is critical to gingerbread house success. You don’t want your house to lean to one side.
Next, you must execute your plan by cutting out the pieces of gingerbread and carefully constructing the house. Are your walls load-bearing? Will they support the roof? One year, I built a lovely gingerbread house and then tried to attach a roof that was heavily coated in gumdrops. The walls of my house buckled under the weight. I had to admit, gumdrop shingles proved to be a poor design choice. I should have gone with a lighter candy.
Finally, you need to recover from any setbacks and keep going when things go wrong. This lesson in tenacity is always helpful for scientific study (when things often go awry). The year that my roof caved in, I decided that my house had an open-air design and really didn’t need a roof anyway!
Check out these great tips on Building a Gingerbread House from veteran home-builder Bob Vila’s crew.
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