It was fantastic to see one of Camp Starlight’s campers, Sam Seltzer, host “Stack The Caps” at his school!
He collected over 200 new and unused baseball hats that he will be donate to kids with cancer.
If your Interested in hosting your own Stack the Caps event in your local community, check out our website at stackthecaps.com.
And don’t forget to bring your caps to camp this summer for our annual Stack the Cap event.
Friendship bracelets and summer camp go together like… well, summer camp and friendship bracelets!
Saying goodbye is always bittersweet. Colorful handmade bracelets and anklets keep the campfire vibes alive through the winter months — the more sun-faded, the better.
So far as supplies go you only need three things to get started:
There are dozens of different styles when it comes to friendship bracelets. Here are a few of the tried-and-true classics that every summer camper should learn!
The classic braid is the go-to standard of friendship bracelets. If you can braid hair, you already basically know how to make one. If you don’t… well, read on!
Start by cutting three pieces of embroidery floss. How long? Well, measure around your wrist, and add an inch or two for beginning and closing knots. Consider using more than one color to give the bracelet some personality!
Tie the three pieces together at one end and begin braiding the floss. You can pin the end down with a clothespin if that helps keep you steady. As for how to braid, just follow the steps in the image below and repeat until you reach the end of the floss:
Image source: http://laurenhartmann.com/
Once you reach the bottom, just tie the loose ends with any knot that strikes your fancy.
Now the only task left is finding a friend and helping each other tie them around your wrists! See you next year — pinkie promise.
The Fishtail is similar to the Classic Braid, but with a few twists that make it a little trickier to pull off. The final result is a little chunkier than the Classic Braid, adding some variety to your styles if you happen to be wearing more than a few. (If you’re a lifelong camper, we’re sure you are.)
But don’t worry; if you can tie a fishtail braid in your hair, tying a Fishtail bracelet should be no problem!
To begin, select about a dozen different colors of embroidery floss and cut them to length, just as with the Braid above. Tie them all together at one end, and braid following his pattern until you get to the end:
Tie the end and slip in a few beads if you’re feeling inspired — case closed!
If you can master the Classic Braid and Fishtail, get ready for your final challenge: the Knotted Bracelet! It’s a little trickier than the others, so be sure to pay close attention; especially for the beginning and end, when you’re measuring out the “clasp” part of the bracelet.
Detailed instructions are available over at The Red Kitchen.
The only trouble with friendship bracelets is finding enough wrist and ankle space to wear them all! Just be sure to save a little room for next summer… and the one after that.
Adding a little personalized spark to all three bracelet styles is easy: just mix in beads, or maybe even pieces of camp life like acorn caps and seeds.
We’re excited to see what you can dream up.
Summer camp isn’t just about campfires and sports and jumping in the lake: we’re happy to report that the arts are alive and well at Camp Starlight!
From fine art to ceramics to theater, there are activities and specialty resources available for practically anything a creative spirit could dream of.
Camp is a hands-on place, so it makes sense that the hands-on approach applies even outside the core activities like sports and archery. Not everybody wants to be on their feet all day, so painting, ceramics, and other studio arts give campers a chance to slow down, zone in, and get their hands dirty in a creative environment.
Not a huge fan of ultimate frisbee? How about ceramics then! Not a pottery buff? Maybe some theater will float your boat? Camp is full of creative outlets, and everybody gets a chance to try out as many different mediums as they want until they find the one that speaks to them.
One of the best things about doing arts activities at camp is how they build on themselves from year to year, all while connecting with students’ activities and interests during the school year.
Campers who dream of going to art school can find plenty of time and resources for honing the skills they already have, while newcomers to a craft can start fresh and continue to grow the next summer if they desire.
At camp, the level a camper wants to reach within the arts is completely within their own control. The sky’s the limit!
What’s a campfire without some good-natured inside jokes? Theater is a great way for campers to play and practice team organization outside the sports environment. The end product is usually a little on the goofy side (this is summer camp after all, not Shakespeare in the round), but what’s really valuable about the activity is applying those teambuilding skills to something more like “real life” than a team sport.
You could say that the team that plays together, stays together.
Ultimately, the goal of creative activities at camp is to build confidence through self-expression.
The arts have always been a safe place for campers to express the things they have on their minds. Making art in a community ensures that everybody gets plenty of attention, and skilled instructors are always on hand to pair campers with the tools appropriate to their skill level. No matter the discipline, every camper gets a chance to show their own unique creative spark.
Camp isn’t just a fun place — it’s a creative place too! So get creative in the arts. There’s no better time than summer to make something spectacular!
It was midway through the fifth week of summer camp that I suddenly realized I didn’t know what day it was.
…Or what week it was.
And you know what the craziest part is? That didn’t make me feel stressed at all! On the contrary, I hadn’t been so happy for months.
After all, who has time to balance a calendar when you’re spending all day and night away from the computer, playing games in the sun and making new friends?
Summer camp has a way of making you “live in the moment” — so much so that losing track of time is totally normal. In fact, it’s pretty much expected by campers and counselors alike.
After a long school year of classes and homework and tests, let me tell you: it’s an incredible feeling to just let it all go.
“Live in the moment” may be a common piece of advice, but truth be told it’s a difficult nugget of wisdom to follow without practice. Back home, the phone was always ringing, the deadlines were always looming, and the stakes always felt high. It wasn’t until I started spending my summers at camp that I started to understand what “living in the moment” really meant.
…It didn’t mean throwing my phone in the lake, or not worrying about grades. It meant simply being okay with my best try — and to keep my mind on the task at hand, rather than always worrying about the next one.
Camp is the perfect place to practice living in the moment, because there is simply less to worry about. In fact, living in the moment is pretty much the default at camp. There simply isn’t much to worry about, and it’s hard to think about the past or future when the present is packed with activities, sports, campfires, and all the rest.
So you see, losing track of time at summer camp is pretty understandable!
However, that isn’t to say that anybody is disorganized. Far from it; if anything, camp will improve your time management skills and help you get used to staying on schedule. The big difference is that everybody is in it together, and it’s not the end of the world if somebody is late once in awhile. Nothing encourages being on time quite like the thing you’re rushing to get to being a ton of fun!
There were many days that I spent on my feet running around for 12-15 hours straight, and yet it always felt like there just wasn’t enough time in the day. The saying that “time is relative” is definitely accurate at summer camp. If time is crawling during an SAT prep test, then it’s flying when you’re at camp, taking a first shot at wakeboarding!
Honestly, the only calendar any of us worried about was the end of camp, when we’d all have to pack up our things and embark on our journeys back home. Leaving camp is always bittersweet, but we all left with a profound new outlook on life. We had learned what it truly meant to “live in the moment,” and it’s a lesson I’ll never forget. Thank you camp!
Have you been keeping up on Parks & Rec lately? Yeah, so have we. (You have to do something when summer ends, right?)
Here at camp pretty much everything reminds us of camp activities, but apparently we’re not the only ones: and Nick Offermans’ goofy woodworking-obsessed character has gotten us particularly excited to dive into some traditional American crafting in the shop at Camp Starlight!
“It’s difficult to name a favorite wood. They are all so noble, each with its own special characteristics.”
– Nick Offerman, Parks & Rec
Okay, maybe you don’t have to be as serious about woodworking as they are on Parks & Rec, but getting crafty in the shop is definitely a ton of fun.
Woodworking is one of those traditional skills that is slowly being lost in much of the country. Trying it out at camp is as much about getting in touch with the history of craftsmanship as it is about learning practical skills that will serve you well next time you need to use a little elbow grease on a home-improvement project.
The best part about woodworking at Camp Starlight is that it isn’t “just any” woodworking class. If you think building a chair in the shop at school sounds boring, how about building a rustic necklace, or something you can use in your room — like a laptop tray? Campers have built some pretty crazy stuff in summers past, including:
…and the list goes on.
If you can imagine it, you can build it. Staff specialists work with you to help you learn the tools, and then your creativity gets to run wild making something cool along with the group… or going rogue and making something else entirely.
If you’re racking your brains trying to think of a good Father’s Day, Mother’s Day or Holiday gift, keep it in mind when you hit the shop next summer. Everyone loves homemade gifts, so a handmade gift from the camp woodworking shop is sure to fit the bill. It’s certainly less boring than socks!
Whatever you bring home from the camp woodworking shop, it’s guaranteed to surprise your folks. Camp isn’t just fun — it can also be practical.
We can’t wait to build more awesome stuff next summer! See you in the shop!
