Marble Runs

When I was a girl, I loved playing with a wooden marble run that I always remember having. It actually still resides at my parents' house and I continue to enjoy it along with my children.

Over the years, we have purchased or received a variety of marble runs as gifts. We had a build your own plastic one, an expensive interchangeable wooden one, and a couple toddler versions that used balls.

While the concept of a changeable marble run is nice, it always seemed to get knocked down or fall down before we were done playing with it.

The wooden ones are the most appealing to me and they seem to be the most expensive.

This Christmas I hoped we could get one like my parents', but maybe with the improvement of double racing rails. I found a couple varieties, mostly Amish. Again, cost determined that I should wait a little longer.

My husband wondered if he could build one for us, but time got away again.

In the mean time, I thought I could find some molding that might work for us. I wondered too of it could later be incorporated into a constructed marble run.

I took two marbles and my two girls to Lowes. We checked out the molding options and found one that allowed the marbles to run nicely.

After returning home with my 96" piece of molding, we talked about options for cutting it. We decided on thirds, one for each kid.

The bottom of the molding is a little too rounded and tippy for setting on a flat surface. But looking through our blocks, we found some little "U" shaped blocks that hold the molding very well.

My $7 molding has been a great purchase so far and provided hours of play in the two days we've had it.

Maybe for my birthday I can have a two rail wooden marble run...I'll make it my wish. :)