2014-10-30-Braille Exchange Braille for the Holidays

2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays

Seminars@Hadley

Braille Exchange: Braille for the Holidays

Presented by Susan Fisher Sue Melrose Debbie Siegel

Moderated by Larry Muffett

October 30, 2014

Host You’re listening to Seminars@Hadley. This seminar is “Braille Exchange: Braille for the Holidays,” presented by Susan Fisher, Sue Melrose, and Debbie Siegel; moderated by Larry Muffett.

Larry Muffett Welcome to Seminars@Hadley. My name is Larry Muffett. I’m a member of Hadley’s Seminars Team and I also work in Curricular Affairs.

Today’s seminar topic is “Braille Exchange: Braille for the Holidays.” Our presenters today will be familiar to

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 1 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays many of you. We have veteran Hadley instructor Sue Melrose, Susan Fisher and Debbie Siegel. Today they’ll be sharing some ways to incorporate Braille into your holidays. So without any further ado let me welcome Sue, Susan and Debbie and we’ll get underway. Welcome! And I believe Sue Melrose is going to kick us off today.

Sue Melrose Okay. I’m going to talk a little bit about getting Braille into your holiday season – cards and packages and other things. And I’m sure there’ll be lots of other suggestions as we move through so we’ll all share as we go along.

I wanted to talk about how to actually use holiday events and add the Braille in. For example, Advent – I know when my daughter was young we used to do a lot of Advent activities. She just couldn’t wait those 25 days and so starting December 1st we would make a paper chain of 25 links and we would number those links, and as she tore off then she could see how many days were left and see that the holiday was coming.

So again, you could do that in Braille. You can number a strip of paper, tape it into chain links and put them together. And as your child tears off one he

Also Braille To/From cards on packages. I don’t know about your children or even adults but in our family it’s traditional that people kind of look at what’s under the tree and they like to kind of hold the package, and we have to tell them not to shake them, that kind of thing. But the To/From cards become very important as part of this ritual. So again, at the very minimum, Braille your child’s To/From cards so they too can go through the same activities and excitement of looking at a package and trying to guess and all that kind of stuff.

Your tree and your other holiday decorations, a lot of them have things like “Merry Christmas” written, sometimes in glitter so they can be felt but not always. Put Braille on them. Make sure they’re very tactile. Choose things that are in the shape of what they’re trying to represent.

Braille holiday cards – this is probably the area where we’ve had the most advancements in the last few years. I know when I was younger there really weren’t very many, but now Hallmark puts out cards with both print and Braille messages; and the front of the card is usually embossed in a way that you can feel the picture. And they are pretty good about

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 3 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays choosing pictures that are good for identifying by touch. They keep them fairly simple but they’re also very nice to look at. Hadley, of course, has their print Braille card and their picture on the front is also embossed.

Now these aren’t so visually appealing but they’re incredibly exciting tactile-y. There’s a company, and they’re on our resource list so you don’t have to write it down – it’s called Creative Adaptive Learning Systems. They put out fantastic tactile-y pictured cards. On the front of each card is a thermaform picture.

So they have the flexibility of actually taking a piece of plastic and with a vacuum thermaform machine pulling it down over a picture so that it gets raised. And it’s raised in such a way that there’s foreground; there’s those that are thicker lines and more prominent and there’s background, which are the thinner and the smaller lines. They are excellent artists when it comes to drawing their pictures so that they are very tactile-y identifiable. They put out cards and books and all kinds of things but their greeting cards are excellent.

Another tradition we had when my child was young was if there was a gift that was too big to go under the

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 4 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays tree, or if for whatever reason we didn’t want to do that – it was already set up or whatever – we had clues, chains of clues that she had to read to go find it. And again, you can put these clues in Braille so that the child can do it all independently as well.

Letters for Santa – if your child writes a letter to Santa have Santa write a Braille letter back so they can read it and get it in the mail.

If you happen to decorate your child’s room, or the door to your child’s room or your own home’s front door or whatever, give some thought to having the decorations have the greeting in Braille, have the cut- outs, pictures be cut-outs and so on.

One of the fun things you can do is edible Braille. There’s a lot of things that will make good Braille dots for making messages such as Skittles, M&M’s, Dots, Redhots, etc., Smarties.

And it’s kind of fun because actually I got on the internet and I Googled “Clear sugar glue” which is edible, and I actually found a recipe. It’s very simple. It’s one cup of sugar, ½ cup of water. You put it in a heavy pan, a small pan, bring it to over medium heat until it starts to thicken – and if you can see it it’ll turn golden. Then put that small pan in a larger pan of hot

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 5 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays water to keep it hot or at least warm while you’re working with it. Dip your little candy in there just enough to get something on the bottom of it, stick it to whatever you want to stick it to and it works quite well.

And because it’s a clear sugar glue, if you’re really doing something kind of interesting like a gingerbread house or something, you can pour what’s left over onto wax paper and it makes great see-through windows. So there you go.

Edible Braille, I did a presentation for a classroom once of young children and they sent me all their Thank You notes in edible Braille, which of course I didn’t eat because there were 30 young children making them. But I thought it was a great idea.

Okay, for teachers, bulletin boards are always a big deal during the holidays. Go ahead and make them very visual. Use your colored papers; use your bright color pictures and all that, but think about how to add a tactile element to it. Not only will your blind child in the classroom enjoy it more but so will your sighted.

So again, you can use some of the Braille pictures we have, you might put those up. If you have a message on your bulletin board make sure it’s in Braille. Any pictures that you might put up, cut them up into the

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 6 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays shape so that they can be identified by shape as well as by the picture itself. You might add something that smells good – make sure you’ve got maybe some pine branches or something up there.

And sound is also another fun thing you can do with a bulletin board. You can put little bells around and try and use different textures. You know, if you’re putting snow up there, often they do use little snow cotton but think about other ways you might put little balls on your Christmas tree pictures for decorations or whatever the situation might call for.

And I know I looked around and I finally found a strap of bells that sound exactly like a sleigh bell, and I love to get those out at Christmastime. I understand that in a classroom that can be a little overwhelming but at home it can be fun on your child’s door or on your front door. And on the classroom bulletin boards you might put something a little less invasive such as small bells.

So again, those are just some ideas to bring Braille and other tactile images into your holiday seasons. And at this point I’m going to turn it over to Susan.

Susan Fisher

Thanks, Sue, fun information. For our first picture we’re going to make a Braille picture of a Christmas tree. It’s a frilly tree and it uses seven lines down and ten spaces across. So you can do this picture either on 8.5” x 11.0” paper or even a 5” x 8” index card. The next picture we’re going to do cannot be done on a 5” x 8” index card – you’ll need the 8.5” x 11.0” paper because it’s a larger picture.

So for this picture as Sue mentioned, you can decorate Christmas cards with it. You can put it on a placemat or tags that you put on your holiday gifts. We’re going to use the AR and GH contractions and they form the top of the tree and begin the flaring out of the branches to the left and the right. Don’t be concerned if you don’t know any of the contractions or any of the letters – I will give all of the dot numbers.

The next four lines will continue the basic triangular shape of the tree with the branching out of each line. Line 6 brings the branching in on each side and the dots 4, 5, 6 and the letter L suggest a trunk. And then the final line completes the tree and flares out the trunk a little bit.

It’s a relatively short picture to draw and a nice one to look at. So I will repeat each line twice, and like I said, don’t worry if you don’t know the contraction. I

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 8 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays will give the dot numbers for each contraction and each letter. We’re going to start each line in Cell #1, and as you know our seminars are archived so if you do get lost you’ll be able to pick it up in the archived version.

So we’re going to begin with Line #1 starting in Cell #1, and we’re going to space four times. Next we’re going to write one cell with the AR contraction, which is a cell of dots 3, 4, and 5; and we’re going to follow that by one cell with the GH contraction, which is dots 1, 2, and 6. And that completes Line #1.

I’m going to repeat Line #1 again. So for Line #1 we begin by spacing four times. We write the AR contraction one time, which is a cell of dots 3, 4, and 5; and we end Line #1 with the GH contraction, dots 1, 2, and 6.

We’re now ready for Line #2. Begin again in Cell #1 and space three times. Next write the AR contraction twice, and that’s dots 3, 4, and 5. So we’re going to write dots 3, 4, and 5 two times. Then we’re going to write the GH contraction twice which is dots 1, 2, and 6. And that completes Line #2, but I’m going to repeat Line #2.

So for Line #2 we space three times. We write the AR contraction twice, that’s dots 3, 4, and 5. And we write the GH contraction twice, dots 1, 2, and 6.

We’re ready for Line #3, again beginning in Cell #1 space two times. Write the AR contraction three times – that’s dots 3, 4, and 5. Finish Line #3 with the GH contraction three times – that’s dots 1, 2, and 6.

I’ll repeat Line #3. Space twice, write the AR contraction three times – that’s dots 3, 4, and 5. Finish up with the GH contraction three times, dots 1, 2, and 6.

We’re ready for Line #4. Space once. Write the AR contraction four times – that’s dots 3, 4, and 5. Write the GH contraction four times – that’s dots 1, 2, and 6. And that completes Line #4.

I’ll repeat Line #4 where we begin by spacing one time, write the AR contraction four times, and the AR contraction is dots 3, 4, and 5. Write the GH contraction four times, and that’s dots 1, 2, and 6. That completes Line #4.

We’re more than halfway done with our picture, and if you didn’t know the AR and GH contractions before you probably know them now.

Line #5, beginning in Cell #1, we write the AR contraction five times – that’s dots 3, 4, and 5; and we write the GH contraction five times – that’s dots 1, 2, and 6. That’s the end of Line #5.

But I’ll repeat Line #5, where we begin by writing the AR contraction five times, that’s dots 3, 4, and 5; and the GH contraction five times, dots 1, 2, and 6. We’re ready for Line #6. Space one time. Write the AR contraction three times, dots 3, 4, and 5. So for Line #6 we spaced one time, we wrote the AR contraction three times, that’s dots 3, 4, and 5. Then we write one cell with dots 4, 5, and 6. We write one cell with the letter L, dots 1, 2, and 3; and we finish Line #6 with the GH contraction three times, dots 1, 2, and 6. That completes Line #6 but I will repeat it.

For Line #6 space one time. Write the AR contraction three times. The AR contraction is dots 3, 4, and 5. Write one cell with dots 4, 5, and 6; one cell with the letter L, dots 1, 2, and 3; and write the GH contraction three times, which is dots 1, 2, and 6. And that brings us to our seventh and final line.

For Line #7 space four times. Write the AR contraction one time – dots 3, 4, and 5. Write the GH contraction one time – that’s 1, 2, and 6. Again, Line

#7: space four times. Write the AR contraction, dots 3, 4, and 5 one time; and write the GH contraction one time – that’s dots 1, 2, and 6. And you’ve completed your picture of the Christmas tree.

So while we rest our hands we can listen to Debbie.

Debbie Siegel Thanks, Susan. We’ve compiled an extensive list of resources for purchasing and making Braille gifts. It will be available on our website so don’t feel like you need to write all these resources down because the names and the sites and the contact information will be there.

So let’s start out with some Braille jewelry. Jewelry makes a wonderful gift and there are many jewelry items that you can purchase. Some are handmade and many are personalized.

The first resource is At First Sight. They carry Braille bracelets, necklaces, rings, key chains, earrings, and they also carry a really interesting gift called Steam Punk jewelry. And for those of you not familiar with Steam Punk, Steam Punk is a blend of 19th Century vintage Victorian mixed with a little bit of sci-fi, mixed with a little bit of funky, modern-day look.

And what they do is the artist uses vintage clock gears and pocket watch parts, and then of course each piece includes Braille on there as well. And each piece is unique. And it says on the site that if you have your own jewelry items that you’d like to incorporate in the Steam Punk necklace or jewelry that you can send them to her and she will do that as well.

The next site is Blue Turtle Handmade Crafts. They carry handmade Braille jewelry that’s made from polymer clay.

Braille Designs sells Braille cane charms, harness charms for your canine companions, earrings, ID tags, military-style dog tags, leather bracelets and necklaces.

Brailleiant offers handcrafted custom Braille jewelry, and one of their feature items in their newest line is called Braille Candy. And these are glossy, very colorful pieces and each piece contains one to two letters of Braille.

Elegant Insights sells handcrafted metal Braille jewelry and accessories.

And finally Jewelry in Braille sells Braille pendants, bracelets, earrings and letter beads. And letter beads are metal beads that contain Braille letters. They can be made into either bracelets or necklaces.

Our resource list also includes items where you can purchase clothing and other gift items.

The Braille Bookstore which many of you may know sells a lot of different gift items including Christmas tree ornaments, Braille key chains, Braille calendars and they even have a plastic Braille chocolate mold. And the holiday one, one side the message says “Merry Christmas” and the other side says “Happy Holidays” so you can make your own Braille cards. They also carry household items, toys, games, and thousands of Braille books for children and adults.

Braille Boutique sells Braille magnets, totes, bookmarks, clothing and greeting cards.

BrailleGifts.com specializes in Braille embroidery. They also sell mitten/gloves for children and adults that allow fingers to be free to hold a cane. They have a Braille [slide puzzle], Braille musical cards, games, (inaudible) and even a Braille Rubic’s Cube.

BrailleT-Shirts.com uses crystals or metallic studs as Braille dots to make handcrafted Braille t-shirts.

And this resource Sue mentioned, Creative Adaptations for Learning – she talked about the greeting cards. They also produce textured tactile graphics and materials for teaching basic concepts. They sell Braille alphabet cards, counting cards, shapes and rhyme books as well as the greeting cards that Sue mentioned.

Of course our Hadley store sells Hadley t-shirts, hats and tote bags as gift items. Independent Living Aides sells Braille games and card games.

Maxi Aides sells Braille ball games, card games and toys.

And National Braille Press sells print Braille pendants and bangles, magnets. They even carry a necktie with Braille dots that spell “MVP.” They carry posters and note cards and a wide variety of books for children and adults that can be purchased in hard copy Braille or BRF format.

We’ve included in our list some stores that specialize in gifts for teachers of the visually impaired. Café

Press sells screen-printed t-shirts, hats and tote bags with Braille sayings. And some of the Braille sayings include “I love Braille.” They have a bumper sticker that says “Driver Reads Braille.” They have a tote bag that says “Proud to be a Braille Transcriptionist.”

And Zazzle sells screen-printed t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, postcards and they even sell clothing with Braille on it for your pets.

You can make your own personalized Braille gifts, and Sue mentioned some of the items. You can make Braille dots out of many things. If you are making it for a child though make sure that the child is not going to put the item in their mouth.

Small brass tacks make great dots for wooden items such as decorated boxes. And carefully-placed dots of Elmer’s Glue, beads and even some rhinestones make good dots. Puff paint, Elmer’s glue, colored wire and many types of string make great raised drawings. Sand, smooth plastic, pipe cleaners, velvet and many other materials will add texture.

One of our Hadley students creates personalized Braille music boxes by attaching translucent Braille labels, and you can personalize other gift items in this manner as well.

The resource list includes instructions on how to make Braille apple cinnamon ornaments, a Braille bracelet, a personalized tote bag and Braille wall art where you learn to create a unique message on the wall using Styrofoam balls that are cut in half. We’ve also included a link and instructions to the Farkel dice game and where you can purchase dice if you want to create your own game.

Finally, we’ve included resources for purchasing Braille books for children. Seedlings, their collection includes over 1200 books available for purchase for children of all ages. They also have a Book Angel program where children can receive two free Braille books each year.

And speaking of free we have a list of other free Braille book programs for visually impaired children.

The first is a funny alphabet book. It’s a free handcrafted Braille book created by the Columbiettes, which is the Women’s Auxiliary of the Knights of Columbus. It’s available in English or Spanish and each page features a letter of the alphabet and an example of that letter. So one side would show an “E,” it shows the letter “E” and has a little poem about the “E”; and then the other side is an elephant that’s

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 17 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays very textured. Sue and Susan and I have all seen this book and we think it’s a wonderful resource. We highly recommend it for any child who is learning the alphabet.

The American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults sponsors the Free Braille Books Program series which is available for children kindergarten through 2nd grade, and they have another series for 3rd through 5th graders living in the United States. They feature fresh and interesting titles that have not yet been Brailled and that have been written in the last two years.

The APH Dolly Parton Imagination Library Partnership is for children five and under who live in the United States, and they can receive up to five print Braille free books a year.

Braille Institute of America Special Collection Program offers families in the United States and Canada up to twelve free books per year.

National Braille Press Free Books Program distributes free books in English or Spanish to children birth to 7 living in the United States.

And finally, NFB’s Braille Reading Pals Club will send a print Braille book and a plush reading pal to children within the United States.

And now Susan’s going to finish up our seminar with another Braille drawing.

Susan Fisher Thank you, Debbie. So our second and last picture for today is a picture of a Dreidel. A Dreidel is a four- sided spinning top that’s played with during the Jewish holidays of Hanukah. This picture has 19 lines down and 14 cells across.

There’s a lot of spacing in this picture so you will need to count carefully, and I’ll be pausing a lot to give you time to make the required number of spaces. As I did before I’ll repeat each line twice, and again, don’t worry – if you make a mistake our seminars are archived.

If you enjoy Braille drawing there’s an entire archived seminar on Braille drawing, so you can access that.

Okay, so again we’re going to begin each line in Cell #1. Line #1 begins with five spaces, then we’re going to write the letter P one time – that’s dots 1, 2, 3, and 4. We’re going to write the letter C twice – that’s dots

1 and 4. And we’re going to finish up Line #1 with the TH contraction, dots 1, 4, 5, and 6.

I’m going to repeat Line #1. We begin by spacing five times, the letter P one time – that’s dots 1, 2, 3, and 4; the letter C twice, that’s dots 1 and 4; and the TH contraction one time – dots 1, 4, 5, and 6. That completes Line #1.

Line #2: again, starting in Cell #1, space five times. Write the letter L one time – that’s dots 1, 2, and 3. Space two times and complete Line #2 with dots 4, 5, and 6 written one time.

I’ll repeat Line #2, which starts with five spaces. The letter L is written once – that’s dots 1, 2, and 3; space two times and finish Line #2 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

Let’s start Line #3. Line #3 is actually the same as Line #2 but I’ll repeat it and I’ll repeat it twice. So for Line #3 we space five times. We write the letter L one time – that’s dots 1, 2, and 3. We space two times and we complete Line #3 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

I’ll repeat Line #3 where we begin with five spaces. We write the letter L one time, that’s dots 1, 2, and 3;

We’re ready for Line #4, again beginning in Cell #1. Write the letter P one time. The letter P is written with dots 1, 2, 3, and 4. Follow that with the letter C four times. So we’re going to write four cells of the letter C, dots 1 and 4. Write the letter A one time, that’s dot 1. Space twice. Write dot 4 one time. Write four cells with the letter C, and the letter C is dots 1 and 4, and complete Line #4 with the TH contraction written once – that’s dots 1, 4, 5, and 6.

I’ll repeat Line #4 beginning with the letter P written one time – dots 1, 2, 3, and 4; the letter C four times. The letter C is dots 1 and 4; write the letter C four times. Write the letter A one time – that’s dot 1. Space twice. Write dot 4 one time; four cells with the letter C – that’s dots 1 and 4, and we’re going to do that four times. And finish off Line #4 with the TH contraction, dots 1, 4, 5, and 6.

Let’s proceed to Line #5. We start in Cell #1 with the letter L, that’s 1, 2, and 3. The letter L is written one time. Now we’re going to space twelve times. Finish Line #5 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

I’ll repeat Line #5 beginning with the letter L written one time – that’s dots 1, 2, and 3. Space twelve times and finish Line #5 with dots 4, 5, and 6 written one time.

Let’s get ready for Line #6. Line #6 is the same as Line #5 but I will read Line #6 twice. So for Line #6 we begin with the letter L written one time – that’s dots 1, 2, and 3. We space twelve times and we complete Line #6 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

I’m going to repeat Line #6. We start with the letter L one time – that’s 1, 2, and 3; space twelve times. Finish Line #6 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

Let’s do Line #7, beginning with the letter L written one time – that’s 1, 2, and 3. Space twice; the letter E written once – that’s 1 and 5. We’re going to write the contraction for the dropped F – that’s one cell of dots 2, 3, and 5. That’s the FF contraction. Then we’re going to write three cells with the colon. The colon is dots 2 and 5 so we’re going to write that three times; one cell with the period – the period is dots 2, 5, and 6; one cell with the EN contraction – that’s dots 2 and 6. Space three times and complete Line #7 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

I’ll repeat Line #7 once again. Begin with the letter L – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space twice. Write one cell of the letter E, dots 1 and 5; one cell of the dropped F which is the FF contraction written with dots 2, 3, and 5; three colons – the colon is dots 2 and 5; one period – dots 2, 5, and 6; one cell with the EN contraction – dots 2 and 6; three spaces and Line #7, the final cell, one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

Let’s do Line #8 which begins with the letter L written one time – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; again, the letter L written one time – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times. Write dots 4, 5, and 6 one time. Space four times. Finish Line #8 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

I’ll go over Line #8 once again, beginning with the letter L one time – that’s dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; one cell with the letter L – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; one cell with dots 4, 5, and 6. Space four times; one cell with dots 4, 5, and 6. That completes Line #8.

Lines #9 and #10 are the same as Line #8 but I will read both lines twice. So we’re on Line #9 in Cell #1, write the letter L one time – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; the letter L one time – dots 1, 2, and 3.

Space three times; one cell with dots 4, 5, and 6. Space four times; one cell with dots 4, 5, and 6.

I’ll repeat Line #9. Write the letter L one time – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; the letter L one time – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; one cell with dots 4, 5, and 6. Space four times. Finish Line #9 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

We’re ready for Line #10. Write the letter L one time – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; the letter L one time – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; one cell with dots 4, 5, and 6. Space four times. Finish Line #10 with dots 4, 5, and 6 written once.

I’ll repeat Line #10: the letter L one time, dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; the letter L one time – dots 1, 2, and 3. Space three times; one cell with dots 4, 5, and 6. Space four times. Finish Line #10 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

We’re more than halfway done with our picture of the Dreidel. We’re ready for Line #11. Line #11, we start with one cell of the letter L – that’s 1, 2, and 3. Then we space twelve times. Finish Line #11 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

I’ll repeat Line #11, beginning with the letter L once – 1, 2, and 3. Space twelve times. Finish Line #11 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

Line #12 is the same as Line #11. For Line #12 we begin with the letter L written one time – that’s dots 1, 2, and 3; followed by twelve spaces. Complete Line #12 with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6.

I’ll say Line #12 again. The letter L is written one time – dots 1, 2, and 3. Then we space twelve times. We end with one cell of dots 4, 5, and 6, and that takes us to Line #13.

Line #13 starts out with one cell of the CH contraction – that’s dots 1 and 6; followed by twelve spaces; ending with the ST contraction written one time – that’s dots 3 and 4.

Let’s go over Line #13 one more time, beginning with one cell of the CH contraction – dots 1 and 6; followed by twelve spaces; ending with the ST contraction, one cell of dots 3 and 4.

That brings us to Line #14. Begin Line #14 with one space. Follow that with one cell of the CH contraction, dots 1 and 6. Space ten times, that’s ten

I’ll go over Line #14 one more time where we space one time, then we write the CH contraction one time, dots 1 and 6. Space ten times. Finish up with one cell of the ST contraction, dots 3 and 4.

And that takes us to Line #15. Begin Line #15 with two spaces. Then write the CH contraction one time – that’s dots 1 and 6. Space eight times, that’s eight spaces. And finish Line #15 with one cell of the ST contraction – dots 3 and 4.

Let me repeat Line #15 where we start with two spaces; one cell of the CH contraction, dots 1 and 6; eight spaces. We end with one cell of the ST contraction, dots 3 and 4.

Almost done – four more lines and they’re pretty short. Line #16, begin with three spaces; one cell with the CH contraction – dots 1 and 6. Space six times. End with the ST contraction, dots 3 and 4 written one time.

Let me repeat Line #16, beginning with three spaces; one cell with the CH contraction – dots 1 and 6.

Space six times. Finish up with one cell of the ST contraction, dots 3 and 4.

Line #17: space four times; one cell of the CH contraction – dots 1 and 6. Space four times; one cell of the ST contraction, dots 3 and 4. And if you didn’t know the CH and ST contractions before you probably have them memorized now.

Again Line #17, I’m going to repeat Line #17 beginning with four spaces; one cell with the CH contraction – dots 1 and 6; four more spaces. End with the ST contraction – one cell of dots 3 and 4.

Two lines to go. Line #18: space five times. Write the CH contraction one time – that’s 1 and 6. Space two times. Finish Line #18 with one cell of the ST contraction, dots 3 and 4.

I’ll repeat Line #18. We space five times. Write the CH contraction one time – that’s dots 1 and 6. Space two times and finish up with one cell of the ST contraction, dots 3 and 4.

Line #19, the final line: space six times. Write the GH contraction one time. The GH contraction is a cell of dots 1, 2, and 6. And finish the picture with one cell of the AR contraction – that’s dots 3, 4, and 5.

Let me repeat the final line. We space six times. We write the GH contraction one time – that’s dots 1, 2 and 6. And we finish up with the AR contraction one time – that’s dots 3, 4, and 5. And you have your picture of a Dreidel.

I think we can now open up this seminar for questions, comments if anybody has anything they’d like to share.

Larry Muffett I’m going to turn loose the microphone. You can also use the text box for questions and we’ll make sure to relay those along. So turning loose the microphone and go ahead and take advantage of this opportunity.

Caller Is there any way to make sure that I can draw my own picture in Braille?

Susan Fisher Sorry, what do you mean by ‘make sure that you can draw your own picture in Braille?’ Are you talking about making up your own picture or following these directions?

Caller

I want to make an angel and I want to be able to figure out how to go about that.

Susan Fisher Sue, do you have any pictures of angels? I don’t.

Caller I have a picture of an angel that I specifically would like to make, and just every time I’ve drawn it or tried to draw it so far I just-

Sandy This is Sandy and I know that if you Google “Braille angel” it should tell you or show you Braille drawings of angels that are available on the internet, and you can look at them and see how closely they match the angel you want to make. And see if you could use them as they are or perhaps modify them slightly.

Sue Melrose Yes, I do have a copy of an angel and if anybody would like to have a copy I can email it to them. Just email [email protected] and I’ll send it out.

Susan Fisher We have a bunch of Sue’s here. [Sue Brazel], I think that was initially you who was asking the question. And when I said “Sue, do you have a picture of an

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 29 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays angel?” I was actually speaking to Sue Melrose who does have a picture of an angel. So I’m sorry for the confusion with all the Sue’s, but it looks like we’ve made a match here and that Sue Melrose will be emailing you a picture of an angel when you email her. So I’m glad we’ve taken care of that and sorry about the confusion with all the Sue’s.

Larry Muffett Other questions?

Alice This is Alice and I want to thank you very much for all your information, and how very patiently and very, very clearly, Susan, you presented the directions. And I don’t know if you’ve mentioned this or if it’s on your resource list, the book – the title of which I cannot remember exactly right now, but it’s on one of my shelves and I’ve used it: a volume that’s filled with Braille directions for Braille art. I believe that is still available through APH and I find that very easy to follow.

Also I have made Braille ornaments for a Christmas three by taking a 1.5” or 3.0” needlepoint frame. I cut a piece of a Christmas card or other design, or velour paper that’s like a velveteen paper for the background. I put that in the frame first. I take a

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 30 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays piece of clear DYMO tape and I write a short word in Braille, such as “Joy” or “Cheer” or “Noel,” and then I affix that piece of DYMO tape with the Braille word on it onto the background that’s inside the frame.

Those frames that are available at a craft store or other such yarn store, whatever, already have a little circular piece at the top of the frame that makes it very easy to hang. You can put a satin or grosgrain ribbon through that little circular piece at the top of the frame and very easily hang that onto the top of a Christmas tree. And you have a very, very nice Braille ornament.

Susan Fisher Thank you for sharing that, Alice. We do have a couple of resources on our list about Braille pictures. If you can find out the name of the one that you were referring to and email that to Debbie – I know you know Debbie’s email address; if we don’t have that one on our resource list we’d really like to include that, so thank you for that.

And Sandy, I would like to know your resource if you could email me – I know you know my email address – with that resource. I’m wondering if the resource you’re referring to, do they give directions like we did

Sandy My memory is that they do give directions but I will check and let you know when I email you the resource.

Larry Muffett Just to let people know that we will be preparing this resource list and when we post the recorded seminar in our archives we’ll post this resource along with it so you’ll have access to it.

Susan Fisher Thank you, and Sandy, thank you – I’d really appreciate that information whenever you get the chance. Any other questions? I love the sharing that’s going on here. Anybody else?

Caller I have a copy of a Braille Christmas tree that I had learned how to make in the 3rd grade . What you do is you go in 14 spaces and do the OW sign, and then the O, and then you go in 13 spaces and you do two of them. And you keep going down, like 12 – on the third line you do 12 spaces and you do three of them. Do you get what I’m saying or…

Susan Fisher I do get what you’re saying and that sounds like it would be pretty easy to make. Can you send us that, too? Will our email addresses be included?

Larry Muffett No, but I can post them here in the text box if you’d like.

Susan Fisher Okay, Larry’s going to post our email addresses so if you would email that information to one of us we’d love to include that too. We’d really appreciate it.

Caller Okay, I can do that. It’s good to be talking to you again, Susan. It’s been a while since we’ve talked but I’m still alive and ticking.

Susan Fisher It is fun to be hearing from you. Does anybody else have anything they’d like to share, any questions, any ideas – things that you’ve been using that we can perhaps benefit from knowing?

Caller Oh, I also have a Braille cross that I could send along too that a friend of mine taught me how to make.

Susan Fisher Thank you. We would really welcome that.

Larry Muffett Any other questions? Anything to share? And we appreciate that, if we can get that material to Susan Fisher or Sue Melrose or Debbie Siegel, we can make sure to include that on this resource list that we will post with the recorded seminar in the seminar archives so everyone will have access to it. Any other comments?

Caller Yes, what I have is I have a little six-cell button that I can use to make imprints. I’ll make imprints and then I’ll go back and you can cross-stitch or sew your Braille letters so that it’s more durable.

Susan Fisher Can you send us the directions for those too?

Sue Melrose Where did you get that button?

Caller It was at one of the conferences that I went to for [AER] – this lady had all of these Braille or silver,

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 35 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays sterling silver Braille stuff and I just got the buttons. She was thinking to just sew it but I use it as a template.

Susan Fisher Do you have a resource where we can obtain those?

Caller All my information, I have it put in a very safe place in my closet so I’ve just got to go through and find the lady’s card. But I think it was Braille jewelry – I don’t know if she’s still there.

Susan Fisher Well thank you. If you can send it along we’ll check into it, and if she’s still there we’ll add it to our resource list. Thank you.

Larry Muffett Last call for comments.

Sandy This is Sandy again, and I just want to thank all three of you for the time and effort that you put in to put this seminar together. I think it’s been very helpful, and fun, too.

Sue Melrose

Well, I’m glad you had fun doing it. We had fun putting it together and thank you all for showing up. And keep an eye for future seminars, and we’ll be doing these a couple a month as we always have. And next year hopefully we’ll have even another one on Braille drawings. So thank you all for coming and I’m signing out.

Susan Fisher Well, we’re glad you had fun, too, but do be sure to look at that resource list because there’s a lot of resources there that those of us who’ve been in the field for quite some time weren’t even aware of. So I’m quite excited to go and look some of those up.

Larry Muffett This has been a great time. So again, I want to thank everyone for being a part of this today. This seminar, like all of our seminars, will be archived on our website and available for your use anytime around the clock. And as I mentioned before we’ll make this resource list available along with the recording.

Also each Hadley Seminar is now made available as a podcast which you can download to a computer or a mobile device. If today’s seminar has you interested in this topic or similar ones please check out some of

©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 37 of 39 2014-10-30-Braille Exchange_ Braille for the Holidays our Seminar Archives with some of the other Braille Exchange seminars and Hadley’s course list.

We all thank you for your participation. Your questions were outstanding and really added a lot to the value of this seminar, along with the information sharing that took place today.

Hadley values your feedback. Please let us know what you thought about today’s seminar and please give us suggestions for future topics. One way you can do this is by dropping us an email to [email protected]. And another way to share is by completing a short on-screen survey that I’ll post as we conclude today.

I’m going to turn it back to our presenters and ask if any of them want to make a last, final comment.

Debbie Siegel We just want to thank everybody for coming today and we hope that you enjoy making and receiving Braille gifts.

Susan Fisher Thank you.

Larry Muffett

I want to personally thank all of you for taking the time to be part of this seminar, and please hold on for just one moment and I’m going to set up the online survey.