PORT ANGELES — “I can do this all day,” the young girl said as a pile of wood carvings grew on the table in front of her.

Stop by the Peninsula Driftwood Artists booth at the Clallam County Fair and you are bound to see children engrossed in a piece of driftwood to a degree usually reserved for video games.

“It’s amazing, kids are drawn to it like a magnet. We are the Pied Pipers of the Fair,” said Yolanda Proulx, a five-year member of the Sequim-based artisans club.

The 30-year-old driftwood carving club has as many as 35 members, Proulx said, a number that grows after events such as the fair and the Sequim Irrigation Festival.

The only tools necessary for turning a discarded piece of wood into something worthy of the mantelpiece are sandpaper and an Exacto knife.

But some members use a power rotary tool called a Dremel to carve the wood, Proulx said.

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The rest of this story can be found in Sunday’s Peninsula Daily News.