A wee project [crafts, projects]

[rebeccmeister]

Last year, a member of the rowing club commented on how there weren't any events for rowers to look forward to in the doldrum period between the end of the fall season and the indoor racing season in January. So, like I do, I made something up to go in that time period. I didn't want to make it an overly specifically religious seasonal event, so instead I decided to call it the Holiday Hustle (after the song Do the Hustle) and then added on a Hot Chocolate Fest.

The Hustle portion is an endurance event, consisting of a 6 km erg piece and then a 5k run out-and-back along the bike path.

In any case, it was all right. Actually, as I blogged about last year, the Hot Chocolate Fest part was fantastic, because of the delicious waffles that a teammate made.

So of course, now it's on the annual calendar as something to look forward to.

But - overall I really want to keep the organizing work involved to a minimum.

At the same time, to encourage participation it seemed like a good idea to come up with at least some kind of small prize for the Hustlers who finish first.

Anyway, I'll cut to the chase and show you what I came up with: shrinky dinks!







(with apologies for bad lighting because it's dark at night)



I put them on pieces of leather cord so they could be necklaces or some other sort of ornament depending on what the winner wants to do with them. Once I figured out the design they were pretty quick to make. The only really quirky bit was the shrinking step. I have no memory of how finicky that step was back in the 90's, but in this case there were some moments with some really wild curling. It wasn't until the very last 2 that I figured out an overall strategy to flatten things...and for those 2 shrinky dinks, they tried to curl up and stick to each other while in the toaster oven!

Still, in case you wondered, shrinky dinks are still as amusing now as they were back then.

Comments

[threemeninaboat]

YEAH!!

[twoeleven]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the event would have been just as successful without the Holiday Hustle part. ;)

[rebeccmeister]

Ahahahahaha, actually, yes and no. Everything takes place at our boathouse, which lacks heat and running water, and is situated beneath a freeway. It is not a naturally inviting space.

Today one teammate did declare that if it's snowing during the Holiday Hustle, he will probably do the erg portion, then head straight for the hot chocolate instead of going out to run/hustle through the snow. :^)

[twoeleven]

Hm. Is there electricity in the boathouse?

[rebeccmeister]

We do, at least, have that!

[twoeleven]

But not enough to run a heater? 'cause even a few heat lamps do wonders relative to no heat at all.

[rebeccmeister]

Oh yes, we'll get heaters going for the shindig, for sure. But people here are leery of space heaters in general, so they only get deployed strategically.

[twoeleven]

Huh. Why are they leery of them?

[rebeccmeister]

Fire risk.

We're talking about a large, uninsulated metal shed that contains a lot of wood (rack systems for boats). While there's access to electricity, we discovered last year that it's fairly easy to blow a circuit, too.

Some of the leeryness is not fully founded in logic, I should note.

[twoeleven]

Hm. Very Spartan.

I'd recommend insulating it, assuming it's yours to insulate (and that you won't be doing all the work personally).

Beyond that, it might not hurt to learn the capacity of the circuits in the boathouse. The breakers or fuses should be marked (assuming you have access to the breaker/fuse box.)