Purchased many months ago at a Bread and Puppet performance, this tabletop, cardboard pinball-machine kit has been hanging out, not-quite-done, for some time now.

The kids knew they wanted to personalize it and had decided on a theme of — surprise! — Greek Mythology. While they had begun printing images of gods online and gluing them to cardboard for stabilizing, we did, in this time period, have to replace our oven. For the first time in the kids’ lives, we have an oven with a light, and a window through which one can see. Which of course means: Shrinky Dinks.

It was fun to see them see everything shrink for the first time, and the first ones we made gave us an idea of what we had to shoot for size-wise to make figures that would work in the pinball game. Not only do they have gods and goddesses, but they have the four Winds, and the symbols for many of the gods. They did a lovely job.

On the Pinbox 3000 Facebook page you can see other ways folks have customized their boxes but I have to say — you get a very nice auditory response from a marble bouncing against Shrinky Dinks.