Some acts of kindness are also acts of magic. We just did one of those today.
And, like almost all kind acts, it probably made us (the doers) feel just about as good as it made the receivers feel.
It all started with the idea of a TREASURE CHEST.
And then it blossomed from there. And boy did it blossom.
My sister Sherry and I decided that we were going to
create a TREASURE HUNT. It
sounded simple enough, but the more we worked on it, the larger it became.
We got a plain wooden box.
Painted it black.
Decorated it – and by decorate it I do mean DECORATE. That box had bling to beat the band.
Isn't is so fancy??
Then we got shells.
But not just any shells – FANCY SHELLS!
Our local beach doesn’t have all that many shells, so we had to buy
them.
Then we got JEWELS!
Rubies, pearls, and glass beads. Soooo
pretty.
We wanted doubloons – pirate booty – but couldn’t find
any. So, my partner David MADE some, and
they were fantastic!!
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| David and his handmade coins |
So sweet
We got necklaces, because all treasure chests have
necklaces, right?
We found a pretty feather on the beach – put that right
in the treasure chest, too.
TADA! Look at all of the amazing treasures!
(Many pearls, rubies, glass gems, and more shells hidden under what you can see here.)
We got a small glass bottle to put a secret note in. Only, regular paper for the note simply would
not do, so we burned the edges to make it look rustic (it may have taken us a
couple tries to get that right…).
So cute - tiny bottle! 
Secret note for the inside of the chest
Then we needed to make the TREASURE MAP… It was tricky – we wanted the hunt to be fun,
not too easy, magical, and doable. I mean,
we wanted the kids to be successful! Of
course, it too had to have burnt edges. In
the end our map told the treasure hunters to run 20 steps, splash 4 times in
the ocean, shout “Ahoy Matey, I am on a TREASURE HUNT!”, spin around 4 times, walk
10 steps in towards the dunes, draw a fish family in the sand, look for the “mast”
from a pirate ship in the water (one of the only remaining parts of the downed
ship), find the blue “sail” from the ship, and more. And of course, the final clue told them that
X MARKS THE SPOT. (Luckily, we had a
leftover stepping stone and some spray paint to make the perfect X.)
Only we couldn’t just hand a MAP to the hunters… It needed to be special! We decided on a green wine bottle. Perfect!
Only then, we needed a CORK… Quick trip to some neighbors solved that one.
We wanted to bury the chest, but we didn’t want it to get
ruined in the moist sand. We decided to
wrap it in fabric. But the fabric needed
to be rustic, too, so we dyed it with coffee.
Remember how I told you this project blossomed in
scope?? Believe me now? We worked on this baby for 5 days!
And today was GO DAY!
We headed to the beach to bury the booty. David did the digging, and then made the sand
around the area look normal again. We
plopped the X stone down and we were ready to go!!
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| Burying the fabric wrapped chest |
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| X marks the spot. |
But how to choose the children to treat?? That was a tricky part!! We knew we wanted:
-
A kid or kids young enough to still believe in
magic
-
Parents who would be ok with us involving their
kids
-
Parents or an older sibling who could assist in
hunt
We looked around the beach a bit before finding a group
of 4 kids. 2 were young – probably 5 and
6, and 2 were older – probably 11 and 12.
When they were busy splashing in the water we checked in with the parents,
who okayed our request.
Then we got to work!
We put the green glass bottle into the water and then “found”
it. We walked it over to the kids and
explained that this just washed up “over there - near the mast” (trying to help
them with a clue they would soon see 😊 ). I
held it out and asked the little girl if she would like to open it to see what
the note inside said. She shook her head
no, and I wondered if all of this work was going to be for naught… Maybe WE were the only ones who thought a
treasure hunt sounded fun??
Oh my- a note in a bottle? What might this be?
But then her older sister took the bottle, and the magic
began!!
We walked away to let them hunt (and we settled into a
spot to watch!). Oh, they were so
cute!! They loved the green bottle. One kid was filling it up with water as
another read the note aloud. They seemed
to take a while to read and study the note, but once they began following the instructions
they were all in!
They RAN the 20 paces!
They hollered “AHOY MATEY, WE ARE ON A TREASURE HUNT!”
with glee.
They spun around 4 times (that part made me smile – they were
very committed!).
They splashed as instructed.
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| Splashing (see the map in her hand??) Faces blurred for privacy. |
They drew fish families.
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| Drawing fish families in the sand (following the map directions perfectly!) Faces blurred for privacy. |
They found the “mast” in the water.
They walked the required number of paces towards to dune.
Then they started looking for the blue sail…
Oops… Another
family had a blue sunshade set up, and that was a bit of a red herring. They went to the sunshade and stood in front
of the unsuspecting family 😊 . We
waved from a distance until they saw us, then pointed UP to the blue “sail” we
were standing under. And they came
running!
On the way to the “sail” they hunted for the X that was marking
the spot. They were looking in the sand
for it and luckily, the tiniest girl spotted it and squealed. They rushed over, lifted the X stone, and the
little one knelt down and started digging with her hands.
We hadn’t buried it too deep (we weren’t sure if the
hunters would have a sand shovel or not).
After moving away some sand she was excited to see the fabric, which we
had tied closed with twine. She grabbed
an end of the twine and untied it, then pulled the fabric and box out of the
hole.
Those gems decorating it shone brightly in the sun. It was so pretty! They RAN back to their parents with the box
still sealed and quickly plopped down on the sand to see what treasures awaited
them.
Oh, they looked excited!
They dug through the shells and gems and necklaces and coins. It was so sweet! They found the little bottle inside with
another note. After they had examined it
a while, the 3 biggest girls went back into the ocean (the smallest of the 3
now sporting a necklace from the chest).
Meanwhile, the youngest treasure hunter kept digging thru
the bounty. So. Many. Things! Then she had the brilliant idea to dig a hole
and re-bury everything 😊 .
After a bit of swimming she returned to dig it all back up again, show
her mom a very special shell inside, and put on a necklace to adorn her
swimsuit.
Oh my goodness this was a fun project.
It took a ton of time.
It took a lot of effort.
But it made us feel like kids again and I think it really
delighted the children involved. I can imagine
that littlest girl starting school on Monday, ready for show and tell.
We have not added up the receipts yet to see how much
Kindness money was spent making this magic happen, nor do I know how many hours
we painted and glued and giggled and created.
But it was all worth it.
Because it was time and money well spent to create magic and spread
kindness. It gave us a purpose on some
hot summer days, and it gave 4 kids a fun experience and a story to tell.
