One Matchstick at a Time

The Matchstick Marvels museum sells matchstick hobby kits, so I bought one intending to try my hand at matchstick architecture.  I thought it best to have a few friends help with this monumental task, so one day when both my sisters and a friend were around, we gave it a try.

The kit came with instructions for a small box.  The first step was to glue 13 sets of 6 matchsticks and 2 sets of 4 matchsticks.  Sounds simple enough, right?

          

Maybe, except for the fact the matches didn't want to stay together for novices like me.  We experimented with squeezing the glue onto the matchsticks, painting it on them with another matchstick, or rubbing the matchsticks into a puddle of glue to find the most efficient way.  Just as we would get 6 matches stuck together they would start to fall apart.  Finally we finished all the sets and let them sit on pieces of paper to dry.  

When we came back they were nicely stuck together, and also *gasp* stuck to the paper.  With a little work we freed the matches from the paper--narrowly avoiding the need of borrowing a pry-bar from the shop (not that that would have helped).

We glued the groups of 6 and 4 matches together so we would have 3 sets of 18 matches and 2 sets of 16 matches.  After our matchstick boards were dry, we glued them together to form a small keepsake box.

My dear mother decided the box needed a lid, so she made one.  The finished product:

I think we have quite a bit of practice awaiting us if we ever want to build a Notre Dame Cathedral, but it's a start!

And I have a feeling all matchstick projects start small... but with determination (and patience?--well maybe) they grow, even if it is only one matchstick at a time.