Today’s make something instruction was to work with matches, flames, or fire. I felt like cutting and pasting and transforming … so I reinvented a matchbook that sits on my desk, next to the candle I light when my creative work calls for the comfort and glimmer and scent that only a candle can give.

The marbled paper is something I created years ago, playing with watercolor paints. I’ve been saving that tiny scrap of beauty for so long. It was time to see it in use.

Years ago, when I was barely 20, I had the honor of staying at a high-end resort hotel for a conference. This farmer’s daughter had never been to such a place. Aside from someone playing steel drums every time I passed through the lobby, to me the most striking (pun intended) feature of the hotel’s open air foyer was a bowl of matchbooks on every table. Each matchbook featured a different inspiring quote. I read them all and found scarcely a repeat. I am sure I squirreled dozens of those matches away and brought them home. Now, more than two decades later, they’ve long been exhausted by candle parties, power outages, and backyard grilling.

But the idea of inspiring matchbooks sticks with me. That’s the lasting power of a few, well-placed words. So now these words sit, hugging a matchbook on my desk, right where I’ll see them every day.