Lettering might seem like an odd thing to discuss when it comes to making, but there are lots of great ways that you can include lettering with making. If you have read any of my makerspace posts, you know that I have mentioned how my teens tend to be into more traditional arts and crafts as well as technology, so we work hard to find ways to combine the two. And some of those ways include lettering.

I’ll be honest, the ideas all stemmed from my love of these books on lettering from Quarto Books.

I’ve already shared a post about some of our chalkboard related activities, which you can find here:

TPiB: DIY Chalkboard Fun

Making Text Transfer Chalkboard Speech Bubbles

MakerSpace: Button Maker Challenges

TPiB: MakerSpace Poetry

And we do a lot of stuff with Sharpies. And I mean a lot. You can find some of those activities here:

TPiB: Sharpie Art! Quick and Easy Programming

MakerSpace: Button Maker Challenges

But there are a couple of other books on lettering which we also enjoy that have spurred some additional creative ideas. Those ideas include combining digital media with hand lettering to create our own books and bullet journalling.

Book Making

There are a variety of great books out there about making both books and mini books. Combining those books with our lettering books, we have created a pretty cool book making station in our Teen MakerSpace. We help teens use our digital media lab to create photos, which they then print out and turn into books. They can add text digitally, but we also encourage them to use a variety of lettering techniques to give their mini books a pop. And just this past week we purchased an old school manual typewriter that teens can use to type poems or add text to their books. You can read more about our mini books here: MakerSpace: Instagram Scrapbook and Mini Books.

Bullet Journals

Bullet journals are very popular right now. I learned about them from Librarian Drea at ALA. Actually, several librarians I follow online engage in bullet journaling. And the Irving library in Texas has a monthly bullet journaling program.

What is a bullet journal? According to Bullet Journal.com, “The Bullet Journal is a customizable and forgiving organization system. It can be your to-do list, sketchbook, notebook, and diary, but most likely, it will be all of the above. It will teach you to do more with less.” Basically, a bullet journal is whatever you want it to be, but it is not necessarily a long form diary. It is composed more of short lists, goals, and more.

Buzzfeed has a variety of posts on Bullet Journals that may help you get started:

WTF Is A Bullet Journal And Why Should You Start One

Here’s How To Use A Bullet Journal For Better Mental Health

29 Bullet Journal Layouts For Anyone Trying To Be Healthy

23 Bullet Journal Ideas That Are Borderline Genius

You can also find a lot about Bullet Journalling on Pinterest:

Bullet journal, Bullets and Journal ideas on Pinterest

Many journals can be kind of expensive, so we made our own using 1 inch binders, scrapbook paper, a variety of cool pens, washi tape and stickers. And to add a bit of tech, we made inspirational quote pictures for our covers.

As a librarian, I like that the idea of books keeps coming up in our Teen MakerSpace. Whether it’s making our own books or just journalling about books or making our favorite books quotes into memes using our digital media lab, we love to find ways to circle back to books. And we love that there are books out there not only inspiring our making, but that teens can use to help support their making. We are about making, but we are also about books and reading. It’s not one or the other, but both.

Win Quarto Books

This week I’m posting all about Quarto Books and the various ways that we use them in our Teen MakerSpace. Because I use Quarto Books a lot, I contacted them and asked them if we could host a Quarto Books week and they have generously agreed to donate a set of 5 Quarto Books for us to giveaway. Thank you Quarto Books! To be entered to win, you must be a U.S. resident and need to do the Rafflecopter thing below by Friday, November 18th, 2016 by Midnight.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Filed under: Makerspace