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  • Activities and Competitions

    Organizing activities and competitions can be fun but there are times you need some fresh input. In the activity drop-down menu below, you can find heaps of ideas. What about a Paper Plane Competition?

  • Activities

  • TIP: Think inside the hat!

    Party hats, store-bought or made from pages of an old book or scrap paper are very useful for a display. You can staple the hat to the board as a container for whatever you want to showcase. Or hang them in front of the board filled with little notes, poems, toy animals or whatever takes your fancy

  • TIP: Staple at an angle

    Removing old display items will be much easier when you hold the stapler at an angle when you tack items to the board. The staples will stick out at one side - perfect to get hold of and pull them out when you change displays.

  • TIP: Use a glue gun

    Glue guns are the most fantastic tools for creating displays. You can attach all sorts of materials like hard plastic, metal, fabric and everything else you can think off. Be careful with your fingers (blow - blow) the glue is very hot and you easily get blisters

  • TIP: Create a 3D effect!

    Create a 3D effect by hanging objects in front of the display board, like fish in a Sea Life display or lanterns in a Spring or Garden display.

  • TIP: Don’t overdue it!

    Too much text, images or books on display too close together distract the eye. It all becomes a blur. Each object needs its own space. Think of a shop window that is more than full with appliances, you can’t distinguish one object from the other, while carefully placed objects attract the attention.

Christmas Tree / Angel made from old books

Posted on January 8th, 2008 by Anita

 We Librarians cull a lot these days. Fiction and Nonfiction books have a shorter shelf life. I often compare our policies with that of a supermarket; if the book (product) has not been used for a specific amount of time you can consider there is no longer any 'customer demand' for the title and the space it occupies can be more 'profitably' utilised. You are better to replace the book with titles that are worth their place on the shelf.

Having withdrawn thousands of books (and yes sometimes with pain in my heart but more often with a smile) I've had lots of thoughts what to do with them. Our maintenance team and I created little tables of encyclopedias and I had ideas to use some of the books as actual book shelves but that never happened.

Here is a great idea for what to do with old books that you might not want to throw out but that is of no use to the library anymore; make a Christmas Tree out of it.

This Youtube video shows you exactly how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKvPJljPiYQ

Very simple and you can embellish the tree or transform it into an angel if you put a little Styrofoam ball on the pointy top and cut wings from another couple of pages as you can see on this Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_DXjR8xlH4

You could make several and hang the angels from an upturned umbrella frame, as if they're flying…..

What a great way to see something that is no longer used being transformed into something beautiful!

 

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    For more examples check out the “‘Time Travel; from Moa to Mars display. It might give you another set of ideas.

  • An idea for your next display? Wishful thinking

    Keep on the lookout for unusual, funny or cartoon-like images in magazines, on internet or in the daily paper like the image above. Cut or copy them and store them for when you need inspiration.
    One of those unusual images can be the basis for a great display. You don't need to do the whole design yourself.

  • Or what about this one? Free will, an illusion?

  • TIP: Use old umbrellas as a display unit!

    Old umbrellas without the fabric but with a good frame are fantastic as a display item You can hang little objects like birds, light bulbs, little books and art objects from the frame. Fluffy fabric draped over the frame will give it an extra elegance.... let your imagination run wild and experiment!

  • TIP: Keep an action list

    I am not particularly good at it myself - I'm an ad hoc person - but it is one of my recommendations when I give display workshops. It helps you keeping track of what you're going to do. Make a rough sketch of how the display will look like and write down what materials and tools you're going to need Create a time-line / checklist: This week copying and laminating - Next week: buy or beg materials - Two weeks: covering display boxes with matching paper - Three weeks: collect books matching the display etc. till you reach D-day and start getting nervous....

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