SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About TLT
  • Reviews
    • Book Reviews
    • A to Z Book Lists
    • Book Review Policy
  • Teen Issues
  • Middle Grade Mondays
  • Programs
    • TPiB
    • Tech Talk
  • Professional
    • Teen Services 101
    • Things We Didn’t Learn in Library School
  • MakerSpace
  • Projects
    • #SVYALit
    • #FSYALit
    • #MHYALit
    • #Poverty in YA Lit

June 6, 2016 by Karen Jensen, MLS

TPiB: The Books of Our Heart Button

June 6, 2016 by Karen Jensen, MLS   1 comments

mapart3A few weeks ago I was talking with another librarian friend of mine when she started to ask me about a book. She stopped and said, “Oh yeah, you’re all about making now, you don’t really do books anymore.”

This caused me to pause. Of course I am still all about books.

But it’s true, I am also about making.

I have always been about books. I have also always been about making, I just used to call it programming.

And I am always looking for ways to get teens thinking about books in our Teen MakerSpace at The Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County (OH), which is how we came up with the “Books of Our Heart Button”.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

As you may have heard me say, button making has proven to be incredibly popular for us. We have teens that come in every day simply to make buttons. So we are constantly looking for new button making challenges. I also just did a new big order of “maker” books for our Teen MakerSpace, which I try to always look through when they arrive for any great ideas.

mapart1

Map Art Lab is a part of the Art Lab series from Quarto Books. We have every title in this series in our Teen MakerSpace and this is our most recent addition. Thumbing through the book I stumbled across this page . . .

mapart2

And my MakerSpace assistant and I thought it would make a great button. In fact, we figured we could make the heart out of thumbprints given the popularity of our recent thumbprint buttons and have the teens add their favorite books instead of their favorite streets.

Supplies:

  • Button maker (we use American Button Machines)
  • Button making supplies: shell, pin back, mylar sheet
  • Plain paper (we used white, but any color would do)
  • A heart shaped stencil that will fit within your button size (we made ours)
  • Masking tape
  • Ink pads
  • 2.25 circle hole punch (we use these to cut out our circles)
  • Fine tip Sharpie

Process

1. Cut your circle using the circle hole punch.

2. Tear slim strips of masking tape which you will use to make a negative space on your paper. The masking tape will create the negative line spaces where you will write in the names of your favorite books, so be thinking about how many lines you will need and how you want them to look.

mapart6

3. Using your heart stencil and marker, trace the heart onto your circle.

mapart5

4. Fill in your heart using your ink pad and your thumbprint.

mapart45. Slowly and carefully remove your masking tape to reveal your negative line space. I went ahead and completed the heart outline with the marker.

6. Where your negative line spaces are, write the names of your favorite books.

7. Decorate as you wish and then make into your button following your button maker instructions.

mapart3

I love my button so much I also made one with my husband and kids’ names. But more importantly, I was excited to find another way that I could combine books with making to keep our teens thinking about books while having fun making in our Teen MakerSpace.

Filed under: Makerspace, TPIB

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments
Button MakingTeen ProgrammingTeen Programming in a BoxTeen Programs

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).

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

May 2018

TPiB MakerSpace: Love Your Pets

by Karen Jensen, MLS

October 2017

TPiB: Emoji Fortune Tellers

by Karen Jensen, MLS

August 2017

I Went to a STEAMFest and This is What I Learned

by Karen Jensen, MLS

May 2017

TPiB: Soldering with teens: just like hot glue, but metal

by Karen Jensen, MLS

March 2017

Getting Ready for May the Fourth: Some Star Wars STEAM Ideas

by Karen Jensen, MLS

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Sydney Taylor Blog Tour: THE TOWER OF LIFE by Chana Stiefel and Susan Gal

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Who’s In Rabbit’s House by Verna Aardema, ill. Leo and Diane Dillon

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Akim Aliu Dreamer | This Week’s Comics

by Lori Henderson

Heavy Medal

What’s Coming in 2023, A Feedback Poll, and Goodbye for Now…

by Steven Engelfried

Teen Librarian Toolbox

I Spy Something Awkward, a guest post by James Ponti

by Amanda MacGregor

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

A Book 25 Years in the Making: Marla Frazee Visits The Yarn

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

Global Read Aloud Books Announced

Colorism, Internalized Racism, and the Power of Privilege: Malla Nunn Discusses "When the Ground Is Hard"

Writing for Change: Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner Kekla Magoon in Conversation with Ibi Zoboi

Three Literary Fiction and Poetry Authors Turn to YA

January’s YA Debut Authors Share Their Hopes for 2021

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Stacey says

    February 26, 2019 at 11:27 am

    We have a button maker at our library, but so far are mostly using it to create buttons to sell, and a few times in children’s programming (last year when we first got it, we had a Pokemon program and kids drew their own Pokemon on a button). You’ve got some great ideas here!

    We do want to know though, what are all the words on the Books of my heart button?? two of us have been studying the pictures trying to figure them all out, and we are at a loss.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2023


COPYRIGHT © 2023