Nutty Boats

It has been raining a lot here in Austin and it always reminds me of the origami boats we use to float in puddles left after the rain. I was reading on Made by Joel, one of my current favorite websites, about how he use to make walnut boats as a kid. They were so cute I had to try them. It was hard to find whole nuts but we finally spotted some assorted nuts in bins at Whole Foods. You need to break the walnut in half (something harder to do than you would think), drip candle wax into the boats, and when the wax starts to harden, stick a toothpick into it.

Since I had a small bag of assorted nuts, besides the walnut boats, I also made a peanut boat, two pecan boats, and an almond boat. I made the sails using wrapping paper and scraps of fabric I had lying around.

I had a small piece of white paper and asked Sean what he wanted me to draw on it and he said, “Glasses!” Lately, he has been fascinated by people who wear glasses. I got Lasik a few years back and when he sees old pictures of me, that’s the first thing he points out.

We tested them out in bowls of water and waited for it to rain again but the Texas sun would dry the puddles so quickly that we never had the chance to use them in puddles. We did launch all of them in our downstairs bathroom sink and they were floating nicely for a little while and then a giant baby hand came out and capsized half of them. I think these boats are more for mature preschoolers not toddlers or grabby babies. I am going to experiment with adding some weight on the bottom or using sturdier sails before we can break these out during bath time.