Young at Heart: Ribbon "Fire" Poi

Happy early Summer Solstice everyone! The warm weather has arrived just in time! For this much belated edition of Young At Heart we have fun tutorial for kid-friendly "fire" poi. It's just the thing for those warm Summer days, playing out in the yard.

Poi is a long loved tradition of the Bay Area and practiced by many circus troupes and artists in the area. However the tradition of poi first originated in New Zealand and the first time the world was exposed to fire poi was as a tourist attraction in Hawaii by the early 1960's. For more information on poi check out this link to Wikipedia: Poi (performance art).

Obviously, we don't want to hand over

any fire poi to our nearest and dearest young ones. So this is a fun solution that looks as pretty as fire and has less of the safety hazards. These ribbon "fire" poi are so fun and easy to make that they would be a fun toy for folks of any age.

Materials: The only things you need are a pair of scissors, small embroidery hoops or any other small hoops you can stick your hands through and a whole lot of ribbon. I chose reds, yellows, oranges and other colors to make it look like fire.

Step 1:Take off the outside ring of the embroidery hoop. We are going to be using just the inside hoop.

Step 2:Cut a piece of ribbon. Make sure it is extra long.

Step 3:Fold the ribbon in half and make a loop.

Step 4:Put the ribbon loop through the wooden hoop. Then thread the ends of the ribbon through the ribbon. Check out this picture to see what the ribbon should look like.

Step 5: Tighten the ribbon to secure it on the hoop.

Step 6: Repeat steps 2 through 5 until you have a full hoop. It should look something like this.

Step 7: Play!