Handmade Gifts
For the past several Christmases I have made my gifts to my children by hand. With one exception, all of these gifts have been made from wood, and most of that wood from wood I've reclaimed from fallen branches in my back yard. This year was different, but over half the time I've been able to put together what are, in my mind, some nice gifts from reclaimed materials, including a chess set, a Tafl board and pieces, the game of Senet, and the Royal Game of Ur.
This year the gifts were all games again, but instead of an "ancient games" theme, this year was "pub themed" games.
Game One: Shove ha'Penny
Shove ha'Penny is a traditional English pub game which, traditionally, used "half pennies" as pieces. I'm supplying American pennies with this version. The rules are simple: shove the penny along the board and have them land within the slots to score.
This particular piece is still missing the backstop, but it's ready to go otherwise, with the board sanded, prepped, and stained on one side, and the instructions printed on the reverse.
Another traditional pub game, the goal of Shut the Box is to roll the correct amounts to flip all the dominoes before your opponent does.
Game Two: Shut The Box
Game Three: Deck of Cards
Okay, so cards aren't really a pub game, per se, but one of my boys likes to collect deck's of cards, so this year I decided to make him one. But, being me, I wanted to have some fun with it. I happened to have some coffin shaped boxes from a Halloween party a couple years ago and decided to design coffin shaped cards:
Now, I know I'm fighting a losing battle: the boys will be more interested in the electronics and electronic games they get from others, but I will continue to make and build them personal items every year until I'm no longer able to. And if anyone is interested, I'll be more than happy to share the details of how I produced any of these.
(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe
(design by remyrequinart: https://steempeak.com/@remyrequenart)
I'm all in favor of keeping handmade non-electronic time passing entertainment around.
Yes! Agreed whole heatedly. If I could I would make a living making wooden toys and games. Thank you for coming by!
I think these kinds of gifts are quite creative, love the Card deck!
Here's what I got as a Half penny.
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Now that's an awesome half penny. The best I can do is a regular US penny. I like the ship on it!
The ship portrayed is The Golden Hind, the ship of Sir Francis Drake.
Wonderful to see hand crafted gifts, coffin playing cards are so unique, hope the children have fun with them.
My grandfather built us a castle from bottle caps, took him a couple of years we were allowed to watch development when we visited, one of the nicest gifts he gave to myself and siblings Victor.
Wishes to you and your family have a wonderful Christmas.
Thanks @joanstewart! I would have loved to be able to see that castle. Sounds magnificent!
Howdy sir wwwiebe! Very creative and innovative with the old fashioned games and cards, you even made a coffin shaped card box! I think these are great.