What Santa Brought

Warning: This is not a quilting or sewing related post but it could lead to an addiction for all creative types out there!

I have been meaning to post about this wonderful "toy" that Santa left in my stocking.  December and January were busy times in my household, so here I am.

Kaleidograph Contrast, Flora and OpArt

I first heard of the Kaleidograph from this blog I was visiting...  I gave a little hint to Santa, then completely forgot about it, so I was both delighted and surprised when I found these in my stocking.  Thank you Santa!

So... what exactly are these?  Hours and hours of fun for creative people, that's what they are!

This is Kaleidograph Flora:  12 cards with a different colour on each side.  Three cards are plain, and the other nine have a cut out.

Same cards, reverse sides

What do you do with it?  You just stack them whichever way you like and watch the magic happen.  The cut out have 6 sides, so that even by turning just one card by 90 degrees, you get a completely different design, like this:

From left to right, all I did was turn one card by 90 degrees

There are millions of combinations.  Once you start playing, it is pretty addictive, but as far as addictions go, you could do a lot worse...

Same cards and layout, I simply turned the two black cards on the white side

Santa got me not one, but three kits.  This one below is called OpArt.  It is all black and white except for a couple gray backgrounds and is all curves and circles:

And the last one is called Contrast, and is all angles.  

I have not played too much with the black and white ones.   I can see how they would appeal to many people, but I much prefer to play with colours.

Just playing with colours

I was a little protective of my toy so my kids did not get to play too much with it but I will try to be a bit more liberal with it.  I am thinking of adding it to the rotation of "take out" toys that kids bring when they are dragged to a sibling's sport practice.  (My kids have limited screen/electronic time so rather than taking an electronic game like pretty much every other kid, we bring books, dinky cars, writing and colouring materials, etc.)

This toy can easily occupy kids and grown ups for quite a while!

So right after I finish this post, I am going to do one last design and put it in this nifty plexiglass display rack (it does not come with a single Kaleidograph set but Santa got it when he bought three sets).



There are several online sites where you can buy the Kaleidograph but I can't recommend any one in particular.  If you want to learn a bit more, check out the Kaleidograph website.  No one is paying me to advertise this, but the website is pretty cool too.  If you decide to get one, be warned: You could end up spending hours shuffling around twelve pieces of cardboard!