Using the resources provided for us!

This past week my Director looked up at the mobiles made from tree branches with Ellison die cardinals in them (that are hanging from the children's room lights) and asked what I was going to put up there for summer. This was a fair question considering those branches have been up there since the first weekend of December. I have to say though, I have never received so many compliments on any idea before. And it was so simple.  Naked branches with a red cardinal in each...the perfect winter decor. I thought about adding spring blossoms to them with tissue paper, but I was so busy with decor for Summer Reading Program workshop that it just didn't happen.

So anyways...back to the question...what was going to replace the cardinals? I hadn't considered it at all.  The Dig Into Reading theme is all about underground and when you are hanging things up, well...how do you hang up the underground?  And then it came to me, hang up "slices" of the underground with underground dwelling animals in them. At first I thought I would just use brown posterboard, cut out tunnels and laminate the creatures inside....but I don't have a laminator that is big enough. Then I looked at this year's poster. It showed underground burrows with yellow backgrounds. I could cut out burrows and glue yellow posterboard over the openings.

The best thing of all though, is that I could use Scott Nash's wonderful illustrations that were mine to use as they came on my SRP cd-rom. I enlarged them to the size I wanted and also copied and pasted to a second page which I then flipped horizontally...this way I could hang them up and they would be double-sided.

I cut out the brown posterboard first, traced the cut out part over the yellow posterboard, cut the yellow posterboard out with about 1/2" overhang and glued the yellow posterboard over the opening on the brown posterboard. I used clear tacky glue and put it on the floor of the storytime room with heavy encyclopedias on it to keep it from warping.  I cut out the Scott Nash characters (in color!) and when the posterboard was dry, I glue-sticked them to the inside of the burrows. I used my thin sharpie marker to make the details that had been cut off...the mouses tail and whiskers, the porcupine's quills, the hatch-mark shadowing.

 I used markers to add the detail to the layers of dirt, and I cut the bottom of the brown posterboard so it wasn't perfectly straight.  To hang them up I will use punch a couple holes through the top and hang it with monofilament.  So that's it, my easy idea. I let Scott Nash do all the artwork and all I had to do was cut and past. And a little shadowing.

Puppy Storytime

Last night we had a puppy storytime at the library. I haven't ordered "Charley's First Night" by Amy Hest with adorable illustrations by Helen Oxenbury, or I would have definitely used it.

 The books I included were "Some Dog" by Mary Casanova,







 "Good Boy Fergus" by David Shannon,







 and "Little Dog Lost: the True Story of a Brave Dog Named Baltic" by Monica Carnesi




I have done quite a few dog storytimes, and I needed a new craft. After looking online for a dog front and back template, I thought to myself..."I am capable of drawing something better than that."  I drew my pup front and back and made copies of it on cardstock. My storytime kids are pretty young, so I cut the shapes out myself, leaving the coloring, folding and gluing up to them. Each dog will need a strip of paper (approximately 2" x11.5)  This will be accordion folded and glued to the front and back of the dog. Please glue the folds so they face sideways and not up and down. If you glue up and down, the dog will sit down, and I think the kids would prefer that they stand.  I wish I had thought to take pictures of the finished dogs that were every color of the rainbow. 

Here is my sample: 


And here is the template. Feel free to use it.

Lilly and I share an appreciation for 1960s fashion, especially dresses from the mod era.  Anything that Twiggy would wear. And most especially an appreciation for Yves St. Laurent's 1965 Mondrian dress.  I decided I would try to make a version of this iconic dress, using a vintage pattern.  I found Vogue 4304 at an estate sale, and decided that, with some modification, this pattern could provide the basic outline of the dress.  I modified that pattern by removing all darts. I also used a finished Vogue Paris Original 1715 dress (designed by Patou) to give me some guidelines as to where the dress would be divided into rectangles.

    It was no trouble to find a nice solid knit at Joann Fabrics, however, I couldn't find a blue (too royal!), or a yellow (too orange!) that would suit. I ended up purchasing a blue polo shirt and a yellow polo shirt that were closer to the original colors at a thrift store. They were very inexpensive and I didn't feel wasteful cutting them up for fabric.

  I also bought a lighter white knit to be used as lining for each piece. I felt that if I didn't use lining, all my careful cutting would pull and stretch. One of the reasons this dress took so long was that I hand basted each piece of lining on to the dress fabric. I was being meticulous, but now that I'm done, I'm happy with the results. And here they are!