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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.

Xfactor – Biography books

Posted on June 10th, 2019 by Anita

There are lots of famous people, each one with different personalities and characteristics. What makes those people so special?

Do they all have the Xfactor?

I wanted to create a display connecting our biography books to the International Baccalaureate characteristics such as:            ‘Thinkers’          

             ‘Perseverance’

‘Communicators’                                ‘Resilient’

                     ‘Principled’           

and raise the question: ‘Do all those famous people have these characteristics or is it something else that gives them  –  the  Xfactor?

 

It had to be a vibrant and colourful display, posh and upmarket –  showing paparazzi features common in gossip magazines

What you need:

  • Fabric – 3 different patterns/colours for background
  • Fabric – pink voile, army patterned, feathery patterned
  • 3 Foam heads – 2 women, 1 man
  • 2 Hats, sunglasses, feather etc.
  • ‘Black board’ cart
  • Title – the X factor
  • IB characteristics – printed and laminated

 

 

What to do:

  • Cover the background with the green – black – yellow fabric. I used left-over for the top part – too small to cover it completely and had to create a frilly kind of extra in the middle. It gave it unintentionally extra dimension

  • Staple the title to the board
  • Staple the black board cards to the board
  • Attach the IB characteristics to the black cards with pins or staples – you could write them on the black board card as well!
  • Place the foam heads on the shelf – use Blu-Tack or double sided tape to secure them
  • Drape the feathery fabric around the first head, stick a feather in the fabric
  • Place the sunglasses on the nose of the middle one and put her hat on, secure it with tape – drape the pink voile around her neck and let it hang down in a pointy way. Cut it if necessary and tape it to give it the shape you want
  • Drape the army fabric around the neck of the man and secure it with staples or tape. Put his hat on
  • Cover the boxes in left-over fabric and use the glue gun or staples to secure it
  • Put the display stands on the boxes and secure them with tape
  • Put  the books on the stands and on the shelves

 

Stand back and have a look at your own creation – does it need adjustment?

Are the heads posh and glamorous? Do you need to drape the fabric in shape?

Be critical – think how will others see it. A good tool to help you is a mirror. Get a decent size mirror and look at your display from that angle. It shows you the uneven parts, the slightly out-of-line title or the books that need a different place. Sometimes the covers or size of the books don’t go well together when placed beside each other. Take note of that – you want to show them in the most attractive way!

Filed under: Biographies, Celebrities, Education, Other

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  • 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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