I love doing displays

So, it probably isn't much of a surprise to anyone that I never seem to have enough time.   I cant remember the last time I got to use the word bored in a sentence about myself.  And alas that means that I don't get to update my blogs often enough.

So today I am adding not one but two displays that I have done in consecutive months.

For September our wall theme was "Graphic Novels".   This pretty much plays  down my alley.

I just love the bold action word bubbles for comics so they were pretty much the feature part of the display

For October I was assigned "Beyond the Veil, authors who have passed on".   Not the most cheerful of themes for the children s department but we do what we can.

Fairy tale trio

Stick puppets are great.  You can tell stories and make up scenes and best of all you can decorate them.

These fairy tale puppets are simple and fun.

As I said before, please feel free to print out and use the art on this blog for your personal and story time needs. I love finding my work in unsuspected places

 I do ask that you not publish it or use it for commercial purposes with out permission.

Pickle things

One of my favorite books is " Pickle Things" by Mark Tolon Brown.
And as I love dancing finger puppets I made some pickles for the occasion.
Since I am a big fan of multipurpose, we also enjoyed a story about a pickle who went on vacation.

pond life

This is my pattern for five little fishes.   I threw in a few extra and no one seemed to mind.
I attached paper clips to the back of the fish and made a pole with a magnet for a hook.
once again I let the kids go wild with colors before we played.

What pond would be complete without some frogs?

these are a fairly simple but effective pattern

this pattern makes two frogs from one sheet.  simply fold along dotted lines and glue in center bottom.

I then slid a pipe cleaner into the rear portion so that it would come through the mouth.

on the far end I made a small circle in the pipe cleaner so that it wouldn't go all the way through

and to create a kind of handle.  This is the frogs tongue and can be pushed and pulled in and out.

the hind legs simply glue on after folding and dangle.

The tongue is made from a chenille stem with a pompom fly at the end.

Jungle finger dancers

                                                                            Finger puppets are fun!

Puppets, shadows and theatre

I love to give the kids colors and scraps of craft material to go crazy with.

You would be amazed by the sheer creativity they express.

these are some patterns that we used for our puppet program.

I just love dancing puppets.

This one, while it looks simple enough had a lot of creative ideas from the kids.

Some colored the bats in brilliant hues, while others added pompoms for a body and google eyes

In these days of high tech toys, it is nice to get back to some simple basics

This snake can be cut out and the tabs make a kind of ring.   the sides of the head fold and become

a three d effect .

These are your basic shadow puppets to be cut out and attached to 

a stick for epic plays

Finally, this is our theatre. If you fold the edges over it makes a kind of box

that can set up on the table for a fine production.

So I

A good read is priceless. (cartoon)

What can I say?   I love a good book

Shadow puppets and collage is fun. Elephants, animals and dolls, (OH my)

I love doing crafts programs along with one of my favorite partners in fun, Aimee Leonhard,  I finally got to do one , a collage program!
We did several different collage crafts, including these.

I loved making the patterns for these puppets simple rod puppets
The kiddos were extremely creative with paper but these are from my own poor skills.

We also did dolls that stand up on their own.  I have this one on her back .  It was easier to get the picture.




 Patterns
For anyone not familiar with yours truly, I not only allow but encourage anyone who might need a craft to use my patterns.   If you have trouble copying them, just drop me a note and I will send you a copy.  Note please be patient I don't always check my email every day.