STRONG – Mikayla Luce shook a jar of cream Wednesday before she put it down and started to crank the handle on a butter churn.

The sixth-grader decided she would make butter the old-fashioned way, just like her grandmother used to do, for her project for the Lost Arts Fair at the Strong Elementary School.

“You can either do it with a churn or like this,” she said, of the small, baby food jar she had set down. “You can use heavy cream or whipping cream.”

She cranked the handle round and round as interested onlookers watched, some shaking the jar as they did.

The jar method takes about 10 minutes to make butter, Luce said.

“I thought it was pretty cool to bring back making butter this way,” she said.

Nearby, fifth-grader Alex Viles talked about old-fashioned logging. He had a large, one-man crosscut saw lying on the table that was used for limbing trees.

“My dad does a whole bunch of logging,” Viles said, so he decided to do some research.

He learned about where logging originated as well as the first loggers being German, Irish and English, and discovered that it was a very, dangerous job centuries ago.

“If they had a logjam, they had to use TNT to blow it up,” he said.

Arthur Ryan had metal forging tools spread across his table.

“My great-great-grandfather did this,” the fifth-grader said. “He was a blacksmith.”

He explained how each tool worked or was reworked to meet a new purpose. Tongs, files, anvils and chisels were among the tools used for different purposes, he said.

Annie Dexter, a sixth-grader, demonstrated how she made candles.

“I made candles once with my mother when I was little and thought it would be fun to do,” Dexter said.

She and a couple others who were doing candle projects melted down paraffin wax and added three crayons of similar color.

They added liquid scent and poured it into a small, paper Dixie cup and then suspended a clothespin with a wick attached above the cup.

“Then when it dried we peeled off the cup and it was done,” she said.

Her favorite candle was a pink, watermelon scented one, she said.

Back in the front of the gymnasium, about 10 minutes later, Luce continued to crank the butter churn’s handle.

It’s not done yet, she said

Over in a corner, Alec Marcheterra and Travis Viles, both eighth-graders, played marbles on the floor with Quincy Mitman, a seventh-grader, who researched old-fashioned toys.

During his studies he learned that marbles originated in ancient Rome and Egypt and that the Frisbee was developed after some college kids used to fling around Frisbee Pie Co. empty containers.

Fifth-grader Matt Woodbury researched birch bark canoes.

“You can use birch bark in all different ways,” Woodbury said. “I could make a small canoe, and it would float.”

Sixth-grader Gavin Flagg watched as Tosha Crandall, a fifth-grader, tasted his vinegar concoction that was used for medicinal purposes in the old days.

“It tastes kind of like apples,” Crandall said. The recipe contained warm water, apple cider vinegar and honey.

It has a number of medicinal uses, Flagg said, including to relax the nervous system, relieve stress and arthritis pain.

A popular station was seventh-grader Josh Beedy’s chocolate ice cream. He made a gallon Monday night and the kids were waiting in line for a taste.

Back at the first station, Luce had just finished putting her butter away.

“It’s done,” Luce said. “It took about a half-hour for the churn.”