Outdoor Art: Marble Magnets

Last Wednesday, 23 people stopped by the craft tent to make marble magnets!  This is a simple craft that looks really awesome, and is great for your fridge or locker.  Just get flat-backed glass marbles (I got three different sizes at Dollar Tree!) and find magazine pictures, words, or patterns that look cool under them.  Use a drop of white craft glue to attach the picture so it shows through the marble (it will dry clear).  Use a glue gun to attach a magnet to the back.  Let the whole thing dry for 24 hours, then enjoy.

Huge thanks to Judy, Genni, and Christine for being my craft volunteers this week! 

Making magnets

Some finished products

License Plate Journals

Last Friday, 21 teens showed up for our summer journal workshop.  We made journals out of old license plates!  (Big thanks to my dad for the donation of some old license plates from his basement!)  It was really simple.  We just hooked them together with some report rings. The hardest part was punching the holes in the paper to fit inside; everyone's hands got really tired.  We created special title pages with stickers and drawings, then broke them in with some writing.

Special thanks to Nitha and Caitlin, library grads who love to write.  They helped me out with the event, and each taught a writing exercise to the group!  Caitlin had everyone brainstorm three characters, three settings, and three props, and then use at least one of them to write a paragraph.  Nitha talked about different kinds of haiku and had people write their own.  I talked about six-word memoirs, and gave away some copies of I Can't Keep My Own Secrets while people worked on telling a story in six words.  We definitely had some creative writers in the group, and it was fun to hear everyone read their work aloud. 

I have some leftover supplies, so look for this project at Craft Closet Cleanout in August!  And, if you have some license plates of your own hanging around, try this easy License Plate Memo Board.

 Cleaning the license plates--very important!

 Assembling the journals and making title pages.

Writing!

Relief-Painted Bottle Vases

Today we made relief-painted bottle vases at our outdoor teen craft event. The weather was much nicer than last week, and 26 people showed up! I've been collecting bottles for this project for ages and my office has looked like a recycling center, so I'm glad to get rid of them. The hardest part of the project was actually getting the labels off of the bottles! Anyway, at the event today, we just put blue painter's tape on the bottles, painted them with acrylic, and then peeled off the tape while the paint was still slightly wet. They turned out really nicely! The idea was modified from the book Eco-Craft, so you can check that out of the library if you're interested in doing this again or if you want to find more recycled crafts. Thanks to Anas, Arig, Genni, Katie, and Martha for showing up early to set up the materials.

Our new sign for the tent. Now people will know what we are doing...if they stop to read the sign before asking...

Fred and George model their smocks.

Bottles in various stages of work.

Some projects drying in the sun.

A few more projects