Today was supposed to be the final day for our trial run offering an open craft day at the library. For three months, we had no one who took us up on the offer to use our meeting room for hobbies. Today, however, that changed in a big way.
Our library is small, and we serve a small community, so six participants is not bad at all for us. One came in to work on an adult coloring book. Another assembled a sticker craft kit for her daughter. Two kids joined Miss M, our youth librarian, in making a glittery craft as a trial run for her programs. A mother and her adolescent son also joined me in painting rocks while I was testing some ideas for a future adult rock painting program.
I used leftovers from an earlier program for these, so enamel craft paint was less of a conscious choice and more a matter of simple expedience. I tried some semi-geometric dot patterns first, then a rock primed in one color with a contrasting design, and finally a couple miniature landscapes. I experimented with a few different techniques to get shading and texture through color. The whale was added to the stormy sea on the advice of one of the other participants.
I was pleasantly surprised to see people participating at last, so this will probably continue at least through the summer. I think it helped that I was in there working on something crafty myself this time, and of course it never hurts to put on a pot of coffee so that aroma can lure people in.
If you could ask your library to offer a specific craft program, what would you want? Our goal at mine is to help people learn new skills and experiment with new ideas. Budgets are tight, and our usual timeframe is two hours or less, but more time-consuming or modestly expensive interesting ideas are always a possibility. We are also always open to ideas that result in something useful, not just artistic, e.g. soap making or seed saving. So, Steemians, what do you suggest? Comment below!
One final note: I have been posting a lot of cloud photos lately. Today, the sun is bright, and the clouds are not threatening to unleash thunderstorms!
