My latest project was created for my 9 year old grandson, Trey. He and the rest of his grade 4 classmates were charged with sending out a Flat Stanley to the person they knew who lived the farthest away from them.
Trey chose me, since I live in Edmonton, Alberta and he is in Montreal, Quebec. Although all I had to do was colour Stanley and write a little about Edmonton, I decided to go full on artist for him.
I made Stanley several outfits, pajamas, an Oilers uniform, a winter jacket, and a chef's outfit. Then I added trinkets that went with these outfits, including a knife, fork and spoon, a cleaver, a frying pan with an "egg" in it, and a little cookbook.
I then decided that Stanley needed a travelling case, and got to work on creating it.
It took a few tries for me to get the dimensions correct and how it would stay shut when a 9 year old transported it. I imagined that he would want to keep his treasures in it when it came back from school.
I also wrote a book and added photos to illustrate it. Fun project but time consuming.
There was a little drama that went along with this project. Trey brought it to school and handed it to his teacher to show him. The teacher was so impressed that he wanted show it to his other classes. Sometime during the teacher's show and tell, a child "helped himself" to all of the trinkets. Trey was devastated, the teacher was horrified, and thus "Who stole Stanley's stuff?" mystery began.
The teacher spoke to all of the classes he had visited, he called my daughter and offered compensation. I had told her that I would gather all the little things and send them again. It was only stuff, not a big deal. EXCEPT, the teacher was still devastated. He made another plea to the classes. Finally, after a week of trying to solve the mystery, the trinkets magically appeared on the teacher's
desk. I don't think we will ever know who took and returned the items. BUT...
Phew. All's well that ends well.
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