Library Project - Dolphin Vs. Shark Trophy

So during Summer Reading, we children's librarians come up with various activities to keep the kids busy. One of said activities this summer was an on going trivia contest called

Dolphin VS. Shark - Who Will Win?

This was a fun activity, and I had a pretty good time coming up with all of the Shark questions. At the end of the summer, the plan was to give the kid who had the most correct answers a bag of prizes. Pretty cool. But, lucky for this winner-to-be, I happened to at that time be obsessed with old trophies. For example:

I got this awesome vintage trophy at the local Unique Thrift. I think it cost me 1.99. I had this on our built-ins for a while, but then my significant other noticed it and was like "Heeeeell No." Then it ended up in my workshop, where I decided to take it apart. It stayed like that, because, well, its a workshop.

So anyways, when we were talking about the prize for the trivia winner, I said offhandedly that I would make them a trophy. I don't think I was taken seriously at first, but I said it enough in the coming weeks that by the end of the summer, I was in a position which required me to produce a trophy. This is what I ended up making:

Basically, I collect a couple more old trophies, and disassembled them. Then, I bought two plastic figurines - one shark and one dolphin - and spray painted them gold. I screwed the two maritime invertebrates to the trophy apparatus, and viola, the coolest sea life related trophy this kid will ever win. Well, unless he ends up being a trainer at Sea World.

Wedding Recap: Library Nods

A funny thing happens when you're trying to save money on a wedding. It forces you to think outside the box, get creative, and you find that opportunities arise to make things more personal. That's what happened when we looked for alternatives to floral arrangements for our ceremony decor.

As you may know, Mr. Casserole, my beloved guybrarian, has a longstanding ironic habit of destroying books for the sake of art. We have loads of dismembered old book parts lying around, so when I saw this as inspiration, I thought: "Dang, I can do that." I got some foam wreath forms from the craft store, my trusty glue gun, some scalloping shears, convinced Matt to part with some book pages . . . and made a pair of these for either side of the aisle.

I made a third wreath to hang on our old iron gate as the ceremony backdrop, this time using a pizza box cut into a wreath shape, and forming the paper into roses. (I actually used the rose technique used in cake decorating, but there are also many cool paper flower techniques, including origami, floating around the internets.) Brooklyn pizza saves the day once again! Check it:

Way cheaper than flowers, and you can hang the wreath in your house when you're done.

If you were there and looking closely, you also noticed that the old book pages made it into the boutonnieres (note the feathers, too - our bird theme):

And of course the once we had a library thing going, we couldn't resist using this old card catalog my dad found years ago as a guest book:

Nerdiness abounds, just like our love!

Library Art - Matt Portraits

Kids are always coming up to me at work and asking me for scrap paper. They take the paper and the little golf pencils and draw all sorts of crazy psychedelic things and recently, to my surprise, me! Here is some of the notable kid rendered portraits:

This little gem was drawn for the "libaby man." I especially enjoy the photo-like details the artist included, such as how the stripes in my tie clash with those on my shirt, my egg shaped head, my "hair flap," and my fingerless hands. Okay, so I might be picking on this picture a little bit, but I love it. And as you're about to see, the pictures only get weirder from here.

I've forgotten the exact conversation that accompanied this, but it went something like this:

Little Kid - I drew this for you, you're a pig!

Me - uh that's nice.

Little Kid - aahh hahahahahaha giggle hahaha

The kid that drew this is an older kick who fascinated by the concept of beards. I've actually had to yell at him for trying to touch it. So he drew this. I don't know what he means by "P.S. Slick/Slave/Shave good," or by "might be Santa or Beep."

These with the purple background were drawn by a brother/sister combo. The sister drew/wrote the bottom one. She also verbally called me a girl. I responded by saying something like "so are you." She totally didn't have a response to that! Assumedly that is me in a dress. Apparently I pull it off.

The inaccuracies in this one disgust me. I am appalled by this misleading portrayal. My laces are never, I repeat, never tied that neatly.

Library Projects - Tree Fan

Summer vaction - a time of rest and relaxation right? Well, not so much for children's librarians. The kids have gotta go somewhere during Summer Vacay, and from where I'm sitting, they go to the library.

Anyways, in order to handle this influx of children, my coworkers and I divide the kids up by grades, and then plan programs specifically for the different age groups. I got the 2nd and 3rd graders this summer. This is the perfect age group because they find everything that I do funny, which also makes this the most intelligent and tasteful age group.

Our programs basically consist of crafts and games, and the tree fan was the first project I did with them this summer. It all began when I cleaned out a filing cabinet, and found hundreds upon hundreds of unused green folders. These folders had been sitting there since the Reagan era, and I figured that odds were they would not be missed. A bit of cutting with the crinkly sissors (my name for them), and voila, I have my tree tops.

I then though it might be a nice touch if there were little apples and leaves to go onto the tree tops. By "nice touch" I really mean "a time waster" because I was already beginning to fear that the kiddies would finish this project way too fast.

Now I needed the tree trunks/fan handle. Luckily, I've managed to set a standard of doing curious things involving trees while visiting upstate, so my parents hardly batted an eye at me wandering around our yard and woods collecting sticks. I give all of the collected and cut supplies to the kids, throw in some tape and glue sticks, and alakazam, tree fans:

So that was the finished product! I considered this project a success for a couple of reasons:

1. To my knowledge, none of the kids stabbed each other with the sticks.

2. To my knowledge, I was not stabbed with any of the sticks.

3. At one point, I had 10 or so kids fanning me with their completed fans. This gave me the perfect opportunity to use my Maniacal Laugh of Supreme Accomplishment.

That basically was it for the craft part of the first program. The rest of the time was spent with them throwing pool noodles at one another, and then ended with them doing their best impression of an angry mob, chanting "cheater" at me (I showed them a number guess trick and refused to tell them how I did it.) All in all another successful program!