Yesterday, 13 people showed up to make 80s crafts! We snacked on popular food of the 80s (Reese's Pieces, Sour Patch Kids, microwave popcorn, and Fruit Roll-Ups) and rocked out to great songs like "Video Killed the Radio Star." I got to wear my very 80s cassette tape earrings and "Jason" heart necklace in honor of the day! The program itself was chaotic, but everyone left with three awesome crafts.
A few weeks ago, I ordered BeDazzlers from their (complete waste of time) website for this program. Note to self: never order anything "As Seen on TV" again!! They charged an arm and a leg for shipping, but never bothered to ship my order. Luckily, they never actually charged my credit card, either. I called and cancelled the order this week, but that left us without BeDazzlers to decorate our tote bags. So, I had to run around like crazy to see what I could get in the craft stores and ended up with iron-on studs as the most economical choice! This meant, of course, that we were treated to an endless variety of "stud" jokes from Jamie as I described the activity, but at least we got to do it!
So, we started with the retro-graphic tote bags, cutting apart the iron-on studs and positioning them on the bags. But, the directions said to turn the item inside-out before ironing, and then all the studs fell off as people did that. We ended up turning the bags inside out first, then sticking on the studs by reaching inside, which worked much better. (It would have been so much easier with BeDazzlers. Grrrrr.) Anyway, the bags turned out pretty well and only a few rogue studs had to be stuck on with craft glue. I hope everything stays on when people use the bags!
We then made a quick necklace modified from the jewelry book Hardwear by Hannah Rogge. It was just plastic tubing and screw eyes, connected in the front with a safety pin for a great industrial punk look. Very 80s, but also cool now.
At the end, I taught everyone about the magic of shrinky-dinks! We did some quick drawings with Sharpie, cut them out, and punched a hole in them. The library does not have an oven, so we used my toaster oven from home, which worked just fine. In less than two minutes, everyone got amazing small versions of their drawings! A lot of people safety pinned them on to their tote bags, which was a cute idea. We are definitely going to make shrinky-dinks again, but we will probably use colored pencils so the colors are not so dark. (If you want to do them yourself, the only craft store around here that sells the paper is A. C. Moore.)
Check out our pictures:
A few weeks ago, I ordered BeDazzlers from their (complete waste of time) website for this program. Note to self: never order anything "As Seen on TV" again!! They charged an arm and a leg for shipping, but never bothered to ship my order. Luckily, they never actually charged my credit card, either. I called and cancelled the order this week, but that left us without BeDazzlers to decorate our tote bags. So, I had to run around like crazy to see what I could get in the craft stores and ended up with iron-on studs as the most economical choice! This meant, of course, that we were treated to an endless variety of "stud" jokes from Jamie as I described the activity, but at least we got to do it!
So, we started with the retro-graphic tote bags, cutting apart the iron-on studs and positioning them on the bags. But, the directions said to turn the item inside-out before ironing, and then all the studs fell off as people did that. We ended up turning the bags inside out first, then sticking on the studs by reaching inside, which worked much better. (It would have been so much easier with BeDazzlers. Grrrrr.) Anyway, the bags turned out pretty well and only a few rogue studs had to be stuck on with craft glue. I hope everything stays on when people use the bags!
We then made a quick necklace modified from the jewelry book Hardwear by Hannah Rogge. It was just plastic tubing and screw eyes, connected in the front with a safety pin for a great industrial punk look. Very 80s, but also cool now.
At the end, I taught everyone about the magic of shrinky-dinks! We did some quick drawings with Sharpie, cut them out, and punched a hole in them. The library does not have an oven, so we used my toaster oven from home, which worked just fine. In less than two minutes, everyone got amazing small versions of their drawings! A lot of people safety pinned them on to their tote bags, which was a cute idea. We are definitely going to make shrinky-dinks again, but we will probably use colored pencils so the colors are not so dark. (If you want to do them yourself, the only craft store around here that sells the paper is A. C. Moore.)
Check out our pictures:
Tote bags get a thumbs up.
Fun with scissors.
Finished products!
3 comments:
Those tote bags look AWESOME! Great job!
Gretchen, I think I was just reading an old post of yours about a jeans-to-purse craft with the Sisterhood theme...loved it.
thanks so much! it was fun for everyone, myself included!!
yes, we've done several jean crafts over the years. we got a lot of milage out of the sisterhood between the books and the movies! we did butt pillows out of jean tops, leg bolster pillows, leg purses, dog chew toys, and bandanna-style head scarves.
we're actually doing another denim craft in a few weeks, making jean legs into end-of-school autograph pillows.
the fact that i missed this makes me super sad :(
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