Things I Didn’t Learn in Library School: Crafting Programs by Stephanie W.

How to do crafts. Or in my case, crapfts. I completely suck at being an artsy fartsy person in so much as being able to do certain types of programming. I am a master seamstress and I quilt but the few programs where I’ve tried to get teens interested in those things didn’t go so well and the cost per person wasn’t justifiable to administration. So…for other types of crafts, I’m expected to just whip things up. And let me tell you…at no time in my MLIS instruction did anyone teach me how to varnish, paint, make shrinky dinks out of plastic cups, braid lanyards, make Hunger Games parachute drops, or make duct tape (insert name of any object here).
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Filed under: Crafts, Things I Never Learned in Library School, What They Didn't Teach Me in Library School

About Karen Jensen, MLS
Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).
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This past fall's locker makeover crafts were pronounced “too easy” by some high schoolers. So Wednesday we try sock critters. I am a little scared. I have done the project before, so there's that.