Picture It: 30 Days of Art Activities, part 1

This year’s Teen Read Week theme is Picture It @ Your Library.  It runs from October 16-22.  But don’t worry, I am here to help you get ready!

The truth is, you can do a wide variety of fun things with this type of a theme.  You can challenge your teens to picture themselves doing almost anything with the help of library materials.  Want to know more about space?  Yep, the library has what you need – just picture it.  Want to hunt dinosaur fossils?  Yep, we have that, too.

It can also be a celebration of art and self-expression.  For the month of September, in order to help you get ready for Teen Read Week, I am sharing a craft a day.  There are a lot of fun things you can do with your teens with this theme for TRW.  Have a craft a day after school as a drop in activity.  Or have 1 large program where teens can choose one or more craft stations to do.  So here is a recap of what I have shared so far on the TLT FB for the first week of September . . .

Day 1 : The exquisite corpse

Day 2: gyotaku, the Japanes art of fish prints

You can take this theme into multicultural territory with a variety of activities, including the Japenes art of fish prints. Although it is traditionally done using real fish, you can use plastic fish. In fact, you can use a wide variety of objects, including fruits and vegetables, shoes, found objects and more. You simply apply ink to one side of the object and gently press it onto paper to get a print image. Then you can embellish as you wish. Pair this with some other multicultural art projects for a great multicultural Picture It program.

Day 3: Infographics

Day 4 : The Denim Gadget Case

You can recycle old jeans to make this cool storage case.  Hand sewing will work, no need for a machine.  Not only can you use the case for things like iPods or cell phones, you can use them for pencil cases and more.  Here is a way to expand one pocket into many and make a wall hanging organizer using recycled jeans.  You can do this as a single project or as one choice on a theme day: recycled crafts, sewing crafts, renovate your wardrobe crafts . . . you get the idea.

Day 5 : Book Quotation Celebration

Help teens turn their favorite book quotes into unique pieces of artwork.  Read all about the inspiration for this project and see examples at my original TLT blog post.

Day 6: T-shirts

Here you can learn to make original t-shirt designs using freezer paper and peel and stick sheets.  They can be book related, or not.

Day 7: 52 Reasons Why deck

Take a deck of card and share 52 reasons why you love someone or something.  Very easily adaptable.  Think, 52 reasons I love books, or 52 books I love, or 52 reasons I love Harry Potter (insert book of choice here).

Bonus Craft:  Star Wars crafts, including the Yoda finger puppet

I shared this earlier, but it is a great way to get Star Wars fans together and share your favorite Sci Fi series.

Filed under: Crafts, Programming, Programs, Teen Programming