“Gravestones are the classic source for this technique,” writes Noah Scalin in his instructions for Day 135 of 365: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life.

He’s suggesting a rubbing, which many of us did in elementary school by laying a sheet of paper over something rough or textured, then rubbing with crayon to reveal the skeleton and outline of the matter underneath … leaves, paper clips, feathers, what have you.

My subject for these daily creations is words. A trip to the cemetery would have been an interesting excursion to find rub-able words. But today’s schedule did not allow for such a field trip.

Instead, I visited my bookshelf and found Gather Comprehensive, a hymnal with an embossed hard cover. I swiped a piece of blue sidewalk chalk from the girls’ stash in the garage, snagged a scrap of vellum from our scrapbooking supplies, and set to rubbing.

I love the cloudy, mottled effect, and the way the word is almost ghost-like in a mist of turquoise chalk.

I’ll just have to get past the bothersome shape of the h, which looks like a b. “Gatber” means nothing to me …