Cool Stuff

An Olympic Survey

A Skaters Journal

The Olympics

Trivia

Care for your skates

Off Ice Training

Scrapbook

The Jumps

Precision Skating

Famous Firsts

Bulletin Board

Sign My Guestbook

One rather simple idea we came up with were small bags of candy. Just buy 2 or 3 larger bags of your favorite candies (or go to a bulk food store) and make your own loot bags. After all, who can resist candy? Just be careful if you plan on throwing them on the ice - the bag might break open and the candies could go all over the ice, delaying the competition.

Teddy bears bought at a dollar store are also a cheaper alternative. These usually cost $1-$2, which is still a bit less than flowers.

One of my favorite ideas was also good with my friends. At a craft store, purchase small (1 to 2 inch) pre-cut wooden stars. Usually, these are in the 25¢ to 50¢ range. Using tole paint, base coat the stars with your favorite colors. If you are an experienced tole painter, you might want to tole paint a small skate on the front of the star when the base coat dries. Then, above the skate, write "Awesome", or "Great", or something like that. Even if you aren't a tole painter, the base coat should be fairly easy. Instead of painting a skate and message on the front though, use a fine ink pen or fine permanent marker to write a message. Instead of drawing a skate (I'm assuming that if you can't tole paint a skate, you'll have trouble drawing one as well), encouraging words are just as effective. You could write "You're a Star", "You were Great", or "Congratulations", etc. Then, when the paint/marker dries, use a glue-gun to glue a small piece (about 2 inches) of twine to the sides of the star so that it can be hung. Sign your name and year to the back of the star so that your friends will remember who it was from. These require a bit of work, but if you already have the tole paint and twine around the house, are much cheaper. In my opinion, they're much nicer than flowers anyway!

Something else I've tried making is my own felt skates. Buy a couple pieces of your favorite color felt. On a piece of paper, draw a pattern of a skating boot (no blade, and no heel - make sure the bottom of the boot is flat). This pattern can be any size, but make sure whichever size you choose, you can get the appropriate size paper clips for the blades. Pin this pattern to the felt, and cut out two for every skate you want to make. Holding the two pieces together, start near the top of the boot (where you'd find the hooks if you were using real skates) and start hand stitching down the side using a blanket stitch. When you come to the spot where the blade is supposed to be, stop. Insert a paper clip close to the size of the skate. This paper clip should go between the two layers of felt. Continue stitching around one strip of medal, leaving the rest of the paper clip showing. Make sure the paper clip won't fall off. Then, continue stitching up the other side of the skate. Because you haven't stitched the top of the boot (where your foot goes in), that's where you should insert the cotton batting. When the skate is stuffed, start with the blanket stitch again and hand sew the top. Make a bow out of ribbon and sew to the top. If you want to, you can even join two skates together and put the bow between both of them. When this is done, sew a safety pin on the back of the skate so that your friends can wear them. These are actually a lot easier than they seem (my 8 year old sister can even do them).

I've tried my best to explain how to do these things. If you don't quite understand something, e-mail me and I'll try to explain it to you in a different way. These do take a bit of practice, but they're not really that complicated. Trust me, if I can do them, almost anybody can. Good Luck!