May: Pixar Themed Display

We were very lucky to have Nathan Stanton, Story Supervisor for Pixar, come to our school to give a talk about the work he has done at Pixar. He was fascinating, showing clips from Monsters Inc., Cars 2, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life and more! Inspired by his visit I created a Pixar themed display.

As you can image this took a long time to create. I separated out each character into layers and cut the pieces out using the Silhouette Cameo, then I glued all the pieces together.

For the Up! border I found some clip art of patches and arranged them into two rows.
For the Monster's Inc border I used the flower symbol in Photoshop and created flowers in various sizes and colors to mimic Boo's door.

For the birds at the top of the display I created three different type of eyes to give the birds different looks and when I taped them to the bookshelf I varied the different bird designs to make them look as unique as possible.

Behind the cars shelf I created a desert scene using two shades of brown and one of orange. I made Mater and McQueen using the Silhouette Cameo and the layering as I mentioned above, I also included the car that was inspired by Nathan Stanton.

At the very bottom of the display I added Wall-E and A Bug's Life, cutting out grass and creating a caution border as seen on Wall-E.

Here are the desert files if you want to trace and cut them out or use them with the Silhouette Cameo:

 Orange desert files:

Dark Brown Desert files:

Army Men file:

 

Mine Bird files:

Mine Birds Wooden Post files:

April: Earth Day Tree Display

For our Earth Day display this year I created a tree that spans across our bookcase. I created the trunk of the tree by laying full sheets of construction paper on the display and tracing a trunk design, cutting it out piece by piece so it matched. I made the trunk months before the display was put up, so I numbered each piece and took a picture of it up, to use as a guide when it was time to put up the actual display.

For the leaves I created several different variations and cut them out using the Silhouette Cameo. It took a lot of time to cut out all these leaves, in various colors, so I began several months ahead of time and did a sheet of leaves whenever I had a bit of time.

For the books I pulled all out Earth Day themed books to complete the display.

January: Puzzled Over What To Read Next? Display

Puzzled over what to read next? Check out our new library display!

For our first three displays of the new year we focused on variations of the classic "If you liked this, you'll love this" display. For our Puzzled display I used our Silhouette Cameo to cut out dozens of puzzle pieces and then I taped the pieces together forming the border of the display. For each Matching set of books I taped a puzzle piece of a matching color on the covers.

I including this sign on the display letting the students know what the display was all about.

I found some puzzle piece letters online and made the signage for the top of the display.

I used Goodreads for help finding books that went well together. That's all there was to it!

December: Star of Wonder, Star of Night Display

This year for one of our winter themed display I chose to do a star theme. I called the display "Star of Wonder, Star of Night." This display was one of my first attempts at using our new Silhouette Cameo machine that was recently donated by a library parent volunteer. The Silhouette is amazing and I can create all kinds of projects. For this display I drew up two designs in Illustrator and then brought them into Photoshop where I saved them as .pngs. We did not do the software upgrade to the Designer software on the Silhouette, but I have learned some easy work arounds to create basically any design I want in the Silhouette Studio.

For those of you who have a Silhouette or other paper cutting machine, here are the two png images, please feel free to use them:

If you bring them into the Silhouette Studio you can use the select trace area and then uncheck high pass filter to make this a cut file.

For the books on display I chose every book that we had with star, shine, night.... in the title.

For the rest of the decor I found star images on Pinterest and made them into cut files. I also made some 3D stars from old book pages using a tutorial I found on House Revivals

That's about all there is to it!

October: LGBT History Month Display

October is LGBT History Month. Since our Halloween displays will take up the second half of the month, I choose to celebrate at the beginning.

I started by creating a resource list with books on LGBT history and biographies and, fiction books featuring LGBT topics. One of our volunteers then pulled all the books for the display.

For signage I wrote out LGBT HISTORY MONTH in Photoshop and then manipulated the text with a rainbow gradient. Feel free to use it:

For decorating I made rainbow colored pinwheels. I took two pieces of paper of the same color and length, I then folded them up into long skinny rectangles (like how we used to make fans). I then stapled the center of each folded piece. I unfolded the piece to create a half circle and stapled the two edges together. Once you have two half circles you then staple them together. I then cut out a circle in a different color and glued it onto the center.

October: Black and White and Read All Over Display

This month I decided to take all of our black and white cover books and feature them in a display. This was by far the easiest display I have done, and it took very little planning. I recommend using this when you don't have the time to plan an elaborate display.

I went through the fiction section and noted down the barcodes of every book that had only black and white (or white) in the cover. I then entered all the barcodes into a resource list so one of our parent volunteers could pull the books the morning of our display change.

For the decoration I measured the shelf and made black and white boxes in Photoshop that I then printed out, cut out and taped to cover the shelf edge. Feel free to use them:


For the signage I wrote out "Black and White and Read All Over" and then cut out each word and taped it to the display.

Overall it really turned out great!

July: Summer Reading Had Me A Blast Display

 

Check out my new summer display "Summer Reading Had Me A Blast." Sticking with the "Grease" theme I created a Grease type logo using a red car and instead of the words "grease" I used "read."

  In our collection we have two books that have records on the cover: Telegraph Avenue and Half-Blood. I used the cover images to make two two records and I printed out a few copies of each to put around the display. I then created music notes in Photoshop and cut them out to put on the display.

I found a "grease" type font and wrote the display name and then cut out the words and put them onto red construction paper.

A very easy display, but it turned out great!Feel free to use any of the signage/pics.

June: Books Into Movies Display

Book Into Movies Display! There are several YA books being turned into movies this year. This is a perfect opportunity to gain student interest. The last two years we have made a books into movies display that features all recently released as well as upcoming movies. Playing off of the popular "Call Me Maybe" song I created signage for the display, the keywords I made pink and the rest I left black. I also backed each word with a colored piece of construction paper:

To entice the students even further I created a QR code that links to the movies trailer. Each book, that has a trailer available, showcases a QR code on the front cover. Here are some of the codes (you may want to check to see the links are still active):

I then created signs to display on the shelves. The first sign just told gave the display title along with some movie posters:

The second sign gave the title and explained about the QR codes:

The third sign I made smaller 5" x 7" and it was just a common saying that I am constantly saying/hearing:

On the lower shelves of the display I put books that were being turned into movies, yet their trailers were not released yet. I called these "coming soon":

I also added stars to the coming soon books with their projected movie release date:

The display is a lot of fun, please feel free to use any of the signage/ QR codes.