I kid you not.
At work on Monday afternoon we (my boss and I) were putting the finishing touches to our festive decorations. We'd taken inspiration from a previous display at Carterton Library, where they'd used old deleted stock (books) to make Christmas Trees with. Essentially you fold over the pages from the outer edge to the spine a couple of times, and repeat all the way through the book. This gives a cone form which can then be decorated with glitter glue and the effect is, well, appropriate for a library...
Our version of the trees this year is part of our display in the junior fiction area. After some experimentation with the glitter glue spray can, we went for gold spray paint sprinkled with glitter. We're all about the bling! Here's the end result...
In the middle of the display (to the left of this) there's another camel, and a fluffy sheep, and of course, a shepherd...
We also made paper folded angels... there's a paper folding theme here, and it's not origami!
But the 'pee-ace de resistance', our show-stopper, our magnus opus is the snowmen.
Again, more folding of books deleted from the catalogue... Actually, you'd be surprised how many books we delete a week. Why do we do this? Well, if the book is over 6 yrs old in circulating terms, and has come to the end of it's rota, and hasn't issued for more than 6mths (fiction) or 1 year (non-fiction), then it's deleted from the catalogue and sent back to central to be sold. This way they make something back from something that's outlived its useful life in circulation terms. But, I digress.
So the snowmen were folded slightly differently in order to make the more spherical shape (they're actually a bit pointy in the middle, but no-one's perfect). Polystyrene balls were purchased for the heads, and twigs were collected for the arms. So far so so. But, but, but. What do all snowmen need? What do they call out for in the chill of the night? What do they want to keep them warm? A scarf.
We looked in the craft box as Pauline thought there was a scarf already made, but we couldn't find it. We did, however find 2 balls of wool. Useful. If only we had knitting needles..... IMPROVISATION is a great skill, and one which should be taught in schools. We used biros. 6 stitches, and you get a really chunky garter stitch. Nice. 1 hr later, both snowmen were suitably attired, and the job was done. See what I mean?
Bless, this is Pauline's (my boss) scarf.
This is my effort. Ho, ho, ho!
So, how we'll cope after Christmas I don't know, in that we've made all these decorations which will more than likely go into the bin, as we're so small there's no storage space to save them. It'll seem jolly plain once we've taken it all down.
On a more positive note I'm actually looking forward to Christmas this year (after last year's stressy time with the business going into administration and us being redundant...). My library closes on the Saturday 22nd at 12.30pm, and re-opens on Thursday 3rd January, and it's only costing me 3 days leave. So here's to Oxfordshire County Council, I'll give them my vote of thanks, and wish them a very merry one!
I'm off to see what's happening in LCL (Lady Chatterley's Lover). Wish me luck!
ttfn. Kat :)
At work on Monday afternoon we (my boss and I) were putting the finishing touches to our festive decorations. We'd taken inspiration from a previous display at Carterton Library, where they'd used old deleted stock (books) to make Christmas Trees with. Essentially you fold over the pages from the outer edge to the spine a couple of times, and repeat all the way through the book. This gives a cone form which can then be decorated with glitter glue and the effect is, well, appropriate for a library...
Our version of the trees this year is part of our display in the junior fiction area. After some experimentation with the glitter glue spray can, we went for gold spray paint sprinkled with glitter. We're all about the bling! Here's the end result...
In the middle of the display (to the left of this) there's another camel, and a fluffy sheep, and of course, a shepherd...
We also made paper folded angels... there's a paper folding theme here, and it's not origami!
But the 'pee-ace de resistance', our show-stopper, our magnus opus is the snowmen.
Again, more folding of books deleted from the catalogue... Actually, you'd be surprised how many books we delete a week. Why do we do this? Well, if the book is over 6 yrs old in circulating terms, and has come to the end of it's rota, and hasn't issued for more than 6mths (fiction) or 1 year (non-fiction), then it's deleted from the catalogue and sent back to central to be sold. This way they make something back from something that's outlived its useful life in circulation terms. But, I digress.
So the snowmen were folded slightly differently in order to make the more spherical shape (they're actually a bit pointy in the middle, but no-one's perfect). Polystyrene balls were purchased for the heads, and twigs were collected for the arms. So far so so. But, but, but. What do all snowmen need? What do they call out for in the chill of the night? What do they want to keep them warm? A scarf.
We looked in the craft box as Pauline thought there was a scarf already made, but we couldn't find it. We did, however find 2 balls of wool. Useful. If only we had knitting needles..... IMPROVISATION is a great skill, and one which should be taught in schools. We used biros. 6 stitches, and you get a really chunky garter stitch. Nice. 1 hr later, both snowmen were suitably attired, and the job was done. See what I mean?
This is my effort. Ho, ho, ho!
So, how we'll cope after Christmas I don't know, in that we've made all these decorations which will more than likely go into the bin, as we're so small there's no storage space to save them. It'll seem jolly plain once we've taken it all down.
On a more positive note I'm actually looking forward to Christmas this year (after last year's stressy time with the business going into administration and us being redundant...). My library closes on the Saturday 22nd at 12.30pm, and re-opens on Thursday 3rd January, and it's only costing me 3 days leave. So here's to Oxfordshire County Council, I'll give them my vote of thanks, and wish them a very merry one!
I'm off to see what's happening in LCL (Lady Chatterley's Lover). Wish me luck!
ttfn. Kat :)
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