Zombies are coming to Summer Reading

Zombie feltie prototype for a possible 2012 Summer Reading Teen craft. Idea taken from Appleton's former teen librarian and the book Zombie Felties.

This guy was done up out of gray, white, and a little black felt, sewed together with kind of roughly with overstitching and stuffed with some scrap felt.

His intensines are yarn, I added a few details and blood with sharpies.

Craft: Gyotaku (Fish Prints)

Gyotaku (gyo=fish, taku=rubbing) is an art invented by Japanese fishermen in the 1800’s. It allowed them to keep a record of their catches. It continues to be an art form and has been adapted as an alternative to the stuffed fish on the wall for modern sport fishers. Traditionally a real fish is used, along with high quality ink, and rice paper. Libraries can adapt the art further for a program.

Materials and supplies:

-rubber fish from Dick Blick

-paintbrushes

Option 1

-tempera paint

-paper

Option 2

-Speedball Fabric Printing Ink (heatset) (Dick Blick or Oriental Trading)

-t-shirts

-additional fabric paint, i.e. puffy paints (optional)

-iron

-paper

Steps:

1. Start with tempera paint and scrap paper to get a feel for the process.

2. Coat fish well with choosen medium. It is important to do this quickly, as the paint will start to dry and you’ll lose parts of the fish.

3. Cover fish with paper/t-shirt, pressing down and molding it around the fish.

4. Pull it up smoothly.

5. You have a print. If on fabric, follow directions on paint to heatset. Touch up with a paintbrush as needed.

6. Follow directions to heatset. You may want to use puffy paints to further decorate.

Duct Tape

Duct Tape is one of my favorite crafts to do with me teens, and one of their favorites as well. We usually do it 2-3 times a in year. This past summer one of the tweens in the group started up a business selling purses after learning how to make them at a program. Other teens have found duct tape items are a good gift. My teens seem to like it best if I leave it up to them what to make.

Supplies needed:
-Duct tape in a variety of colors. I usually get at least three or four rolls of the standard silver-grey and half a dozen in other colors. I encourage them to use the silver-grey as the base, and add decorations with the others.
-Some good scissors. Duct tape isn't hard to cut, but if they are using things like cardboard you'll need strong scissors. And yes, you can tear duct tape, but some teens have trouble with that, and cutting it leaves a cleaner edge.
-Patterns and directions. I use ones from the Duck Tape Club and books, such as Got Tape? Many of the teens are fine to figure out what they are making on their own, but the first time they usually want directions. Make extra copies of the basic ones.
-Rulers

Optional supplies:
-Paper punches of various shapes and sizes.
-Cardboard, to use as support in some projects
-Waxpaper. If you put a piece of duct tape on wax paper, it can then be cut into shape or put in a paper punch, and then peeled off to be stuck to something else.
-Add-ons, i.e. fake flowers, gems, fringe
-Hot glue gun


To start with, I give the teens a quick lesson in making duct tape fabric, show them the patterns, and mention a few words of caution about being patient and not taping themselves or each other to things. And then it is basically up to them, and walking around helping them.

Some things my teens have made: wallets, purses, roses, sculptures, hats, gloves, shirts, skirts, flip-flops, wings, and my personal favorite: a Guitar Hero style duct tape banjo.

Overall it is a decent priced craft to do. Duct tape is somewhat expensive, but it lasts awhile and is useful to have around.
Price: ~$25-$50 for 2-3 programs
Age range: 11 and up
Time: 1 hour or more

Teen Craft Resources online

While there's not a lot targeted at teen librarians, there are a tons of good craft websites on the net, some general and some specifically teen geared. Here's some of my favorite to sift through:
-Instructables - How to make cool DIY project. Instructions on how to make almost anything you can think of and lots that you never would. Some of it is pretty impractical for most library programs, i.e. too complicated and expensive.
-Not Martha - Not the sort of projects Martha Stewart would generally make. Not a ton of stuff, but fun, and has good links. Someday I will knit myself this wig.
-Cut Out + Keep - Sort of like a less tech heavy version of Instructables. Slightly more practical for library programs. Sadly, not all the projects actually have instructions. If you work with teens that sew, there's a good variety here to choose from
- Craftster - Crafting Community & Forums: Crafts, Patterns, Projects & Craft Ideas. Less instructions than I'd like, but lots of cool things to look at.
- Diary of a Crafty Chica - Blog and website with some really cool stuff. Some of it is way more complex than I'd get into with my teens, but there's some workable/adaptable ideas. She's also got a line of books and craft supplies. I really like her Crafty Diva books, and have used them with my teens.

Next time, some crafts and a book list.

Teen Crafts for Libraries

As a teen librarian, I've always got my eye out for good crafts to do with teens. And I have found that there aren't really that many resources out there targeted at crafts for teen librarians, not like what there is for children's librarians or teen book reviews. So, I've decided that that's something I can do. There is a book coming out, soon rumor has it, called, The Hipster Librarian's Guide to Teen Craft Projects, which promises to be most helpful.

Stay tuned, and if you have a good craft, please comment or contact me in some way.