A Sneak Peek at Summer 2009

Our theme has been chosen! Summer 2009's Summer Reading Program will be Driven to Read! For a NASCAR fan, this is perfect. Oh, I can picture the decorations already (including one of my dad's 6-foot tall Jeff Gordon standees...)

Christmas, December 2008

The room for Christmas 2008 is very similar to the room of 2007. The elves are back up (minus the snowmen, but including the teddy bears from the small wall last year). Santa is once again flying over the houses wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.

The only difference is that the small wall now has a Gingerbread theme.

Fall 2008...Pumpkins, Scarecrows, and Things that Go 'Bump' in the Night!

The local Dollar Tree was a great friend to me for Fall 2008. The scarecrow and crows below are almost three foot high and were each only $1.00. The pumpkins we've had forever and most all falling apart and in need of new leaves, but they worked again this year.

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Then of course I found Frankenstein and Dracula at the Dollar Tree a few weeks after the scarecrow/crows. Again, these are about three foot tall. The ghost we received from a store a few years ago (it is double sided). Pumpkins are just misc. cut-outs.

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The decoration along the top is my traditional haunted house scene above the doorframe of children's. Included is a witch, ghost, clown, haunted house, fence, tree, and moon. The spider/wite/mummy/owl/frankenstein/pumpkin borders on either side of the door are new this year, again courtesy of Dollar Tree.


The decorations saved me a ton of time for the small amount of money I paid for them and they really helped fill the room...always a challenge!

A Look Back at Summer 08...

One last look at Summer...my "Catch the Reading Bug" bulletin board. (set purchased through Upstart)

August 2008 - Back to School

In Indiana, school started this year ridiculously early (August 12); ergo, my school decorations went up earlier than usual! On one wall I put the "Miss Bindergarten's Kindergarten" set that I created a couple years back. I scanned the characters from the book, enlarged them, and printed them on several sheets of A3 paper. I then assembled them and glued them together. Miss Bindergarten is about 4 foot tall! You can see a slight moire pattern from scanning, but only if you get really close. Otherwise it's just an adorable (and easy) set for this time of year.

My newest creation is my "Back to School with Classic Characters" set. This is another computer generated creation. As you can see it consists of Arthur, Froggy, and the Berenstain Bears. Last year when I first created this set I also squeezed Miss Nelson (Miss Nelson is Missing) into the scene as well. The blackboard was left over from a set we no longer have (made in the early 90's). Ellison die cut letters were placed on the blackboard with a couple of pieces of laminated chalk. To the left of Arthur are too fall trees bought from the teacher store in the area. Once storytime gets closer, we will put the names of our storytime kids on leaves and apples and put those on the tree.

August 2008 - Summer Olympics

For the month of August, I took the small wall in the Activity Room and did an Olympics celebration. I put up country flags, the Olympic rings, pictures of events (gymnastics, diving), and a map of the world. After the closing ceremony, I took the "Big Medal Winners" (countries with 20 medal wins or more) and put those numbers by the corresponding country on the map.

Centennial Gala, 2007

I uncovered some pictures this morning that I had to post even though they are almost a year old. Last year was the library's 100th anniversary as being a publicly funded library system. Children's took the activity room and made an overview of the last 100 years of Children's literature (The official theme was "From Potter to Potter." We started at Beatrix Potter and ended at Harry Potter). Each of us took one or two decades and did a display. I also did a huge time line that wrapped around the room.

1907-1919: Tale of Tom Kitten Beatrix Potter

1920's: Winnie the Pooh A.A. Milne

1930's: The Little Engine that Could Watty Piper

1940's: Rabbit Hill Robert Lawson

1950's: Charlotte's Web E.B. White

1960's: Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak

1970's: Frog and Toad Arnold Lobel

1980's: Jumanji Chris VanAllsburg

1990's-2007: Harry Potter J.K. Rowling


We also did several "special displays" to highlight certain points in Children's Literature. One focus was on the Little Golden Books, another on Reading Rainbow selections, and one on the current and future popularity of graphic novels.

Christmas, December 2007

It's Christmas in July! No, not really. It's just a look back at the Christmas Decorations from December 2007.

This was the new addition to the holiday decoration line-up. I painted the elves and the soldier and then took white dot-matrix computer paper and red construction paper and constructed Santa's workshop. The snowmen on either side were store bought and we've used them for the past two years in various scenes. The wreath came from a bulletin board set.


This is a combination of old elements and new elements. The houses and the carolers date back to the late 80's. Santa and his reindeer is brand new. I loved using the silver metallic paint on Santa's sleigh. Red ribbon created reins.



Last, but not least is a really cute wall I try to do every year. The two teddy bears date back to the early to mid 90's. They are made of brown paper grocery sacks! The fireplace and bookcase are from bulletin board sets. A cute wall and easy to do.

May 2008 Activity Room Wall 3

This wall turned out better than I expected. The sand is cardboard taped together. The colors linen, carmel candy, and yellow ochre was individually sponged onto the cardboard. Then, linen and carmel candy were mixed to make a sand color and was diluted with water and glazed over the sponged colors. This made a sandy texture. The bugs were done with poster board and the opaque project. Paint, marker, crayon, and oil pastels were used. The clouds are recycled from the rainbow scene (see March 2008 post below). The sun was made out of construction paper as were the rays. The water is a table cover cut down and bunched up.

May 2008 Activity Room Wall 2

The second wall of the Activity Room was the "water" scene. All of the little bugs are reading bugs as they are lounging on rafts...or surfing! The waves are blue construction paper laminated. The bugs themselves were traced on the opaque projector onto poster board. Various mediums were used to color the bugs: paint, markers, crayon...even oil pastels.

May 2008 Activity Room Wall 1

This year's Summer Reading Program theme is "Catch the Reading Bug!" The graphics were done with poster board and an opaque projector. The artwork came from the CD we received with the Catch the Reading Bug information. The spiderweb is something we use for Halloween every year, but it happened to work perfectly with our summer theme. We also hung butterflies from the ceiling.

March 2008 Display 1

We have two porthole windows at the Children's Services desk. They are changed monthly or bi-monthly depending on the season. For Easter I always put in our little bunny holding the carrot, the Easter basket full of eggs and I load the case up with easter grass and other eggs around it. Sometimes I put ducks or other spring cutouts along the sides and back and hang eggs from the top.

March 2008 Activity Room Wall 3

This is my favorite St. Patrick's day themed decor. The words above the rainbow say "Follow the Reading Rainbow." The rainbow itself is made out of crepe paper and held on the wall with lots of straight pins. The clouds are white construction paper with foamy packing material on top. This year I also made small rainbows and hooked book covers to them with yarn. This project is easy to do and takes up a nice chunk of wall.

March 2008 Activity Room Wall 2

This is another wall of the Activity Room. The eggs are Microsoft clipart. The flowers are handmade by me. I found instructions online but basically all you do is take a square of paper, cut each corner to the center and then fold until you get the whirly-gig effect. A brad in the center secures everything. The stem and leaves are just green construction paper. The bunnies were remakes from some that were around forever. I glued cotton balls to the bottom for a little more depth. Another thing to do with the bunnies is to make yarn whiskers.

March 2008 Activity Room Wall 1

All I can say is that www.dltk-kids.com is one of my favorite sites EVER. They had a cute shamrock poem w/flannel board. I adapted it into decorations for one of the walls in our Activity Room. I printed the shamrocks out, pieced them together, and laminated them. Everyone should visit DLTK at least once.

March 2008 Bulletin Board

This was a fun and easy bulletin board. The border is shamrocks (United Art and Education). The shamrocks are Microsoft Word clipart. The gold coins were circles cut out of gold foil. The 3-D hats have been around Children's since the late 80's. The Irish couple date back to the 80's as well. The hat and pot of gold are handmade and laminated. I created the "Books Are Like Gold" sign in Word and added a few pot of gold stickers.