September: Banned Books Week (Display 3) Banned Books

For the last Banned Books display I decided to make paper chains with locks. One of our Student Library Assistants cut out several strips of black construction paper and stapled them together to form long paper chains. I drew locks onto construction paper and cut them out and then taped them onto the chains.

I also made up caution signs in Photoshop and cut them out and placed them on some of the books.

I saw several displays on Pinterest that were using the ALA's Forbidden graphic on their books. I liked how it looked so I printed out several and pasted them onto the books as well.

I made up a sign for the display using the ALA graphics for this year's Banned Books Week:

I printed out three images using quotes and pictures I found on Buzzfeeds "11 Quotes from Authors on Censorship and Banned Books" 

For the top of the bookcase I made a Banned Books sign using ALA graphics:

September: Banned Books Week (Display 2) Books Under Fire

Our second Banned Books display was inspired by several displays I have seen on pinterest using "fire." I called it "Books Under Fire."

I started by creating a resource list in Destiny of as many banned books as I could find in our OPAC. I needed as many hardback books as possible because of the decor I was putting on the books. One of our parent volunteers then took the list and pulled several books. I picked 24 hardback books and began research each one to find a summary of when it was banned or challenged and a year. I made a template in Photoshop for banned books and one for challenged books. Depending on which option fit I would paste in the summary for that book.

I printed all the banned books onto yellow paper and all the challenged books onto dark peach paper (I was trying to stick to the colors of fire). I then cut the paper down to fit each book and covered the entire right side of each cover.

For the fire I googled fire clip art and enlarged two images to use as templates. I cut the fire out of red, orange and yellow construction paper.

I made a sign for the top of the display using fire graphics.

September: Banned Books Week (Display 1) 23 Banned Books

Monday, September 22 begins Banned Books Week. Every year our library celebrates with awesome displays. This year we have three different Banned Books displays. The first display was inspired by a cool infographic found on WeldonOwen, "22 of their favorite banned books" color-coded by their reason for being banned. My original idea was to take the exact books from the infographic and then create color-coded sashes like the infographic.

However the Upper School Library did not have all the books on the list. I was able to borrow a few from the Middle School Library but I was still short quite a few books. I used the ALA's list of frequently banned or challenged books and found 23 total from our library. I researched each book and found the reason for it being banned or challenged and the year it was banned or challenged. I then created "sashes" in Photoshop with the year in one of six colors (I did not have books for all eight categories as the infographic had). The Six categories I used were: Religion, Politics, Sexism, Sexuality, Cultural Differences, and Racism.

Using the same layout as the infographic, I created a sign for the 23 books along with the six categories.

September: Genre Display

At the end of the last school year we completed our fiction genre-fying project. All the books were labeled and organized by genre. To start the new year, I decided to showcase the fact that our fiction section is now organized by genre with a genre display.

I used two of our bookcases to showcase the display. We have ten genres so I used five on one and five on the other. For the decor I used the same fonts that were used for the genre labels

I printed them out very large on colored paper (the colors of the actual labels) and then cut out each letter and taped it to the display, one genre per shelf.

I filled the shelf associated with each genre with books by that genre only. There was an extra shelf at the top and bottom of each bookcase, so I filled those with a mix of genres and added a sign on one bookcase that said "What's Your Favorite Genre?" and on the other bookcase that said "Our Fiction Section is Not Organized By Genre"

September: Facebook Display

It is the start of a new school year and new displays! I found an awesome interactive Facebook themed display on pinterest from The Punny Librarian and since the Library has a dedicated Facebook page I thought this was a great idea to begin the new school year.

Students were encouraged to "Like" their favorite books by taking a "Like" bookmark, provided on the display, and placing it in their favorite books on the shelves in the stacks. In the top left corner of the display I put a sign explaining the interactive aspect of the display. My sign is only about 8", which is all the room I had, in the Punny Librarian's Display she created a very large sign, which would have been great if I had the space.

I then made several signs using Facebook logos and icons that I found on google and placed them all over the display.

I created the bookmarks by putting the "like" thumbs up on the top of the bookmark and then the word "Like" below it. Below that I told the students to like our Facebook page and provided the link. To hold the bookmarks I made a small sign and folded in the sides and base and taped it to the display:

Event: Bridal (Wedding) Shower

This past weekend I threw a bridal (wedding) shower for my sister and her fiance. I made several crafts/decor for the shower. Here are pictures and instructions, enjoy!

Signage/frames: For the shower we went with a shabby chic, chalkboard, mason jar, burlap, peach and mint theme. The signage that lead guests to the shower location (it was in a large park and could have been difficult to find without signs) was created by using large wooden "frames" from Michaels (they were on sale for really cheap). The signs were wooden so I painted them peach or mint depending. I then purchased black poster board and cut the rectangle to fit the frame. I tied white ribbon onto the frame and then I hot glued the poster board onto the frame. I had trouble finding white chalk (seriously I looked everywhere) so I wrote the sign using white pastels.

We then created a tree full of picture frame and pictures. I had about 70 pictures printed from Shutterfly (I used pics later in a different decoration as well). I then used 15 smaller frames that I had purchased at Michaels and painted. I tied ribbon to the frame to hang it. I hot glued one photo to the back of the other photo and then hot glued it to the frame (after the ribbon had been tied). This way each frame had two photos. We then hung all the frames to the tree (I also made a large frame without a photo and we hung this low so everyone could take selfies, big hit!)

Wisteria Tree: I created 32 wisteria tissue paper decor and we hung them from one of the trees. Here is the tutorial on how to make the wisteria: Here

Doily Flower garland: There were two trees that you had to walk past before you got to the party and the frame tree. I made doily flower garlands for these trees. One was all mint and one was all peach. In the actual branches we hung extra lanterns from out lantern tree. For a tutorial on how to make the doily flower garland go here

Doily Garland: Above the gift table I created two doily garland on twine. We hung them from two trees. For a tutorial o how to make them go here

Clothespin Picture Garland: Using the extra pictures I had printed from Shutterfly I created a clothespin picture garland. I measured the area between the two trees where the food tables were going to go. I then laid out the twine to the correct length. I purchased fabric in the shower colors and used pinking shears to cut out small squares. I then used clothespins that I had dyed peach and mint (using the same method that I dyed the doilies with) to pin the pictures and fabric onto the twine. I also used extra doilies and pinned them on. We then strung the pictures in two rows from the trees.

Lantern and Parasol Tree: My older sister tied mint and peach ribbon and white lace to 24 lanterns. We then tied fishing line to the lanterns. We also had about 12 white lace parasols that we tied fishing line to the handles. We hung these from one of the trees and the extra lanterns we hung from several other trees.

 

Circle Garland: Using three sizes of circle punches and a variety of craft paper I punched out hundreds of circles. I then sewed the circles together in rows of 22 (assorted sizes). I glued all the rows to twine and hung them from the fence.

Rosebud Garlands:I create several paper roses and made garlands out of them. You can find the tutorial here

Initials: I purchased wooden initials for the bride and groom at Michaels, along with an and sign. I painted them peach and mint and hung them from the tree with white ribbon.

Pinwheel garland: Using craft paper I created pinwheels. I took two pieces of paper the same color and length and folded them up into long skinny rectangles (like how we used to make fans). I then stapled the center of each folded piece. I then unfolded the piece to create a half circle and stapled the two quarter pieces together. Once you have two half circles you then staple them together. I hung twine from the tree and used clothespins to pin the pinwheel onto the twine.

You can find the tutu table skirt at Baileyhadaparty on Etsy

Table Decor: We purchased peach table cloths and lace table runners for the dining tables. On each table we had mason jar center pieces with burlap and lace ribbon and a flower decor on each. In the mason jar we put peach carnations. We then put paper plates (in pistachio) and napkins with a fork and knife in each and a matching napkin ring in either peach, mint or burlap fabric with a twine bow.

For the bride and groom's chairs we made custom signs using chalkboards and burlap flowers:

For the food tables we created a farmer's market feel. We used tons of bushel baskets, mason jars, metal tubs and berry baskets.

 Each table had a custom made table skirt in either peach or mint fabric. I just strung twine from two chairs at home and cut 2" by 22" strips and knotted them onto the twine.
I then cut out small 2" by 2" squares from Burlap fabric and made garlands to hang on each table saying what the table was for.

For the chips we made cones from brown paper and glued small 6" doilies inside each. We then tied a piece of mint ribbon around the cone.

For the pink lemonade we emptied out small water bottles and created cute labels that said "pink lemonade." We purchased peach straws from Etsy and then added custom peach ribbons with the bride and groom's name and wedding date.

For the veggie cups we used small plastic cups and added labels that said with Veggies and Dip or Veggies without Dip. Inside each was ranch dressing with assorted vegetables.

For the dessert table I made rose sugar cookies in mint and peach and created a sign to place on the tiered display. I also made a sign for the brownies and some small chalkboard signs for the sour apple straws and favors.

The favors were made by cutting out long rectangles from craft paper. We then folded them so one side was slightly longer and sewed the three sides together. We filled them with jelly beans (the bride's favorite). The top was then folded over and hot glued and then we placed a label thanking everyone for coming.

I created the invitation using Illustrator and Photoshop. Here is what it looked like:

Here is a blank one if you want to use it for your party: