Craft Gossip

Independent craft blog since 2007

Kids and Adults Will Love this Paper Version of Tetris

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I’ve been doing a lot of posts about games lately (see also my post about printable board game templates) because I think games are a great activity when it’s hot outside. Or cold outside, depending on where you live. Or it’s raining. Or really any time you just need something to do. 

I never really got into video games as a kid (or as an adult, other than a couple I play on my phone to pass the time) but I did always like Tetris. Did you know you can play a Tetris-like game without a screen?

One Mama’s Daily Drama designed a printable Tetris board, complete with brightly colored shapes like the classic game. 

You can play it a couple of different ways. Start with a stack of shapes and try to put them together like you would in classic Tetris. Then you can either move the pieces down as you fill rows, or just play until the board is full and you can’t make any more moves. 

This is fun as a solo game (and would be great for a road trip if you laminate the pieces for durability) but you can also print out multiple sets and have people challenge each other to see how many pieces they can use before they run out of space or how long they can play moving the full lines.

It might also be a fun challenge, instead of drawing shapes to place in order, if you worked with the shapes like a puzzle and tried to fill in as much area in your board as possible using whatever shapes you want. 

I think this would be a great one to add to your printable games arsenal, and kids and adults will both want to get in on the fun. 

You can grab the printable Tetris game pieces from One Mama’s Daily Drama. 

[Photo: One Mama’s Daily Drama]

8 Educational Board games to make homeschooling easier [Kids Crafts]

A Great Idea for Storing AND Decorating With Your Board Games [Home and Garden]

Board Game Templates You Can Print [Lesson Plans]

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Overseas Yarn Companies Pause Shipments to US

With last week’s end to the de minimis rule for shipping in the United States, several European yarn brands have indicated they will pause shipping to the states until rules on exactly what and how tariff payments are to be collected are ironed out. 

The de minimis rule allowed packages with a value less than $800 to be shipped into the United States without paying import taxes. With the repeal of that rule, tariffs ranging from 10 to 50 percent of the product’s value, depending on the country of origin, have to be paid. (Manufacturers or consumers could also pay a flat fee of $80 to $200 per shipment.)

More than 30 countries said they would stop some or all mail shipments to the United States temporarily while the new rules are ironed out. 

In the meantime, yarn companies including Knitting for Olive, which is based in Denmark, UK’s Jamieson & Smith and French company De Rerum Natura are a few who have said they will stop shipping directly to American consumers. 

Yarn stores may still be able to receive wholesale orders from companies that have stopped shipping directly to consumers, but that yarn is still going to be more expensive than it was before tariffs increased. 

As yarn expert Clara Parkes has noted (and is quoted in this story from Slate  about de minimis and its effect on knitters) the vast majority of yarn sales in the world probably go to American knitters, so companies the world over will take a hit if they can’t ship to America or more Americans stop buying as much yarn because it is more expensive. This Washington Post story notes that increased tariffs and shipping costs could make a ball of yarn that was $16 cost more like $80 now. 

And while it’s possible to buy American yarn (I have a post all about American made yarn over on Our Daily Craft) it’s not exactly inexpensive either, for the most part, and there are very few mills set up to spin yarn in America. Even with foreign made yarn being harder to come by and/or more expensive, that’s probably not enough incentive for people to want to open more mills in the states. 

Independent yarn stores are struggling to determine what they can buy and have shipped to the states without being cost prohibitive for their shoppers and while still making a profit themselves. 

While there’s hope that some of the tariffs will go away with court rulings saying that a supposed national emergency couldn’t be used to increase tariffs, we’re all kind of waiting and seeing right now. I for one am knitting from stash as much as possible, though I know that doesn’t help the knitting industry as a whole. If you’re an American knitter I’d love to hear what your plans are for getting any yarn you may need in the immediate future.