When my tabla brother Jim Owen asked me if I would bind a book of letters for our teacher, Swapan Chaudhuri, for his 70th birthday, I thought it was a great idea, and we immediately started collecting letters from his students from around the world. I chose an antique creamy Italian paper with deckled edges and after formatting and printing, I sewed the sheets with my trusty Bernina sewing machine and made a half-leather cover in the style of my teacher from Florence, Omero Benvenuti.

During a conference call with my siblings, we discussed gift ideas for my mom. We remembered a family tree that was made using polaroids, and I suggested that I make a deck of family photo cards that could be used to play concentration, or memory, that game looking for pairs, where two copies of each card are placed face down on the floor, and the players take turns looking for pairs. We never managed to play the game in our short visit with 25  family members, but I had fun making it.