In a normal year (yeah, we’re saying that again), we’d spend the first week of March getting ready for our annual community open house. We can’t do that this year, but we’d still like to offer up some creative family fun. Every Saturday in March, we’ll post a video of a Penland artist teaching an activity that can be done at home, by young and old, using easily available materials. 

We want you to get in the mood with some Penland snacks so we’ve already posted videos featuring Penland’s baker, Alena Applerose, showing how to make two coffee house favorites: gingerade and gluten-free peanut butter cookies. 

Our first craft activity is a perennial open house offering: paste-paper painting with Meg Peterson. This is a little like finger painting and uses colored paste to make durable, decorative papers that can be made into book covers, envelopes, wrapping paper, or just displayed on the wall. So put on your aprons, roll up your sleeves, and join us at the kitchen table. That video will be posted on Saturday, March 6.

You can find the videos with material lists (and recipes) at penland.org/openhouse.