School vacations can be super fun: trips to see friends and family, family activities, reading, games, movies, crafts, music, sports, and more. It's great to have a break from our regular schedules. But sometimes so much unstructured time can get boring. I mean, just how many pillow forts can you build during one winter break? How many pillow fights can you have?

If you're looking for something fun to do that's a little different, how about trying your hand at endangered species origami? NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has designed these instructions for making paper whales and turtles. All you need is some paper, crayons and markers, and a little bit of imagination. You'll learn all about turtles and whales while practicing your origami chops.

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/for_fun/EndangeredSpeciesOrigami.pdf

Mine turned out great (the fourth time!). I had a little trouble getting the points perfectly aligned, but once I figured that out (try using a ruler), my little turtle appeared pretty quickly.

I was really happy with how this little guy looks. I like how the folds of the paper made some subtle patterns, like a real turtle's shell. I decided to use crayons to color mine. I used forest green, inchworm, tropical rain forest, maroon, and copper to color mine when I was done.

And on a related craft note, here are some glitter snowflakes I made last night for New Year's Eve. I love finding little creative projects to do to decorate my apartment. Like the origami turtles, I used plain white paper. I cut out the snowflakes and then glittered them.