Blissful Silence

I had a local manga artist come to my anime club last week. Now I have to explain a couple of things about my anime club. I love these kids but these kids are hyperactive maniacs. They are so revved up that they run around and scream and jump up and down every time someone mentions their favorite anime character or squeal and hug each other five times every hour. In other words, they are typical energetic teenagers just let out of school.

I warned the manga artist that these teens are a little "excitable" and that she should just talk over them and not be offended if they don't pay attention. Yet I was shocked with their reaction to her presentation. They sat...and listened...and were quiet...and even TOOK NOTES. I had never seen them so quiet...EVER! They were so into her instructions on making manga characters and they asked questions too. Of course near the end of it chaos resumed but for 30 brief shining moments, I sat down and relaxed peacefully in blissful silence as for the first time the teens actually shut up.

Dye Disaster

It's been a while since I've posted. First I went on vacation and then the DAY that I was supposed to return I got a jury summons and out of 40 people they summoned they were to pick 8 for the jury and lo and behold they picked me. So finally, today I returned my normal schedule.

This afternoon I had a "Be Creative with Food" activity. I love food crafts and think as many crafts as possible should be edible. So I pulled four of them together for a giant craft feast. First, were marshmallow sculptures, very simple, just different sorts of marshmallows and toothpicks. Then I bought red licorice strings online and gave the kids cheerios, fruit loops, and life savers to make their own candy necklaces. Another station was corn syrup mixed with food coloring that makes an excellent paint that you can lick. Finally, the most complicated project was a "make your own" gum kit.

The "make your own" gum kit had food dye gel in it to color the gum. I had never seen food dye gel and did not know its potency. Apparently cake decorators use it in icing and they only put a tiny drop in to color a whole lot of icing. Well, the kids used a lot more than drops to color their gum. We had four small vials of it and one child dumped a whole vial of blue gel in her gum and then chewed it getting blue all over her hands, lips, hands and the table. Of course there were spills and blue and red streaks were over the table that I (stupidly) forgot to cover with a tablecloth. Blue and red were streaked on children's hands, lips and it got on my skirt which I still haven't gotten out.

Of course the children didn't care that they were messy, they were having a ball. But I'm sure some mothers will be mad at me as they struggle to get blue dye out of their children's clothes tonight. When the children left I was faced with a blue and red streaked table only armed with chlorox wipes. I wiped and wiped until my arm was sore but there is still a blueish tint to it. Oh well, perhaps with all the other stains from all the other projects I've done on that table not many people will notice. But next time, definitely a tablecloth.

Food Coloring Faux Pas

Last year I had a craft with food coloring. At storytime we made marshmallow snowmen and decorated their faces with black food coloring. All was going well with this cute, sugary snowmen and the kids really enjoyed it. Then came the teens. Later that afternoon I had some supplies left over for teens to make snowmen, big mistake. The three year olds could handle the food coloring but with the teens the food coloring promptly was spilled all over the carpet. Black food coloring does not come out of carpet.

So I decided to use food coloring again in a storytime craft. You take food coloring and put dots of it on paper, fold the paper over and then get a colorful Rorschach design. It was for our 'Colors' storytime and the kids really liked it. I wasn't thinking and I didn't put anything down underneath the paper, I thought the food coloring would easily come out of the table. Turns out I was right, with the exception of pink food coloring. For some reason every color comes out of tabletops except for bright pink colors. Now there are little pink droplets on the tables. You think I would have learned my lesson the first time. The allure of food coloring was just too much.

Anime Art Contest

We had the judging for our anime art contest last week. I had the anime club vote for the best art. I was concerned it would turn into a popularity contest since many of the entries were from the club. However, I was pleasantly surprised when the club members did not choose their friends as the grand prize winner but someone completely out of the club. A picture of handsome man holding an attractive dying girl won the contest. The picture was full of emotion. The girl was slumped against the male and he had tears running down his face. I think the picture really spoke to the teens and they voted for it over thirty something other entries. I included pictures of some of the notable entries including the first, second and third place winners on this blog. I never knew the teens in my community were so talented. They just needed an outlet.

A Community full of rockin' Michelangelos

For the past month I've sponsored an anime art contest at our library. The response has been overwhelming. We've put colored paper on the walls and then taped the art around the teen section but we've just about run out of room. I think if we had just said we were having an "art contest" there would not have been as much response. I think "art contest" sounds a little elitist and it's too broad. But by giving the teens something specific, and something so popular they've really come through. They love having them on display. I want to keep them up there as long as I can. I hope they don't want their pictures back because honestly I want to take them all home and put them on my fridge.

I've put up some pictures on this blog of other art projects they've worked on. What really impressed me was the gingerbread men they made back at Christmas. Now if I made a gingerbread men he would have buttons down his middle, cute little eyes and a perky smile. The teens went completely out of the box on this assignment. There were very few "cute" gingerbread men. Actually, we had "Naruto/gingerbread men", "cat/gingerbread men", and ones of all different bold colors instead of the traditional brown. One teen made one with a pistol in its hand but then he later claimed it was a "candy cane." (Yeah right.) Some gingerbread men even had googly eyes all down their bellies instead of bright, black buttons. The teens really used their creativity.