A BLOG ON CRAFTS

My involvement with the Ottawa Children’s Storytelling Festival began when a dear friend asked if I could come up with some craft ideas. That is not too hard or taxing for an art instructor who used to make visits to girl guide units.

“How do you plan which crafts to make?” Planning which crafts to make depends on several factors – who (age-wise) is going to be making them? How much money is in the budget? Are there any leftover materials from previous festivals? How many craft kits are needed? What is this year’s theme?

I love shopping for craft supplies. In days of old, White Rose and Multi-craft stores would provide everything you needed in bulk quantities for any type of craft. Now, it is Dollarama, The Dollar Store, and Michael’s. Due to inflation, the quantities are smaller, but still a reasonable price. Now that it is Covid times, safety is a big concern. One trip was made to the chosen stores, so fewer discount coupons could be used and no bargain hunting.

I made a call to my guiding friends to help me on the craft committee. “Want to lend a hand and come up with some ideas?” “Sure, how many different crafts are we looking at?” “Maybe 4-6 different ones, but bookmarks will be the traditional base.” “Okay, I will get back to you in a couple of weeks with some ideas.” So we trade ideas and come up with some solid crafts – easy to assemble. To be sure, I confirmed how many craft kits were required. “We were thinking of 50-100 of each idea.” “Sounds good, but could you double that number?” “They want us to double the number, that means 100-200 of each idea.” Jaws dropped, but we took up the challenge.

My committee and myself – we had at least two months over the summer to prepare the kits. Deadlines – are pressure cookers. Everyone knows that “things happen” or “things come up” which throw you off your plan of focus. The list of supplies necessary is made. The days to go shopping are marked on the calendar. The time allowed for preparing the materials is set aside to not interfere with meals, appointments, gardening, physical activity, and downtime.

One of the foundation crafts is bookmarks. Every child who comes to the library takes out a book. Personalized bookmarks help them to mark their place and keep the book in good condition. Sometimes they are simple and plain. Other times they are embellished with shiny stickers, fancy ribbons, or beads. Each child creates the bookmark as desired. That was easy – 200 bookmarks in one day – hole punched, ribbon cut, stickers sorted -- all packaged up.

Then the enormity of the project sets in. How do you make 200 flower hangings? A cutting mat and roller is faster to cut pieces of felt instead of using a measuring tape and scissors. Who can help? Trusty Patsy and her quilting friends can do it as Patsy is donating a lot of felt.   A sewing machine would be quick and useful for making the seams to insert the dowels on the hangings. Bring out the Singer and plug it in – not so bad, 10 seams sewn in 30 minutes. That means at least 100 in a week. Got the first 25 sewn and the bobbin runs out.  Fill up the bobbin and resume sewing – except it keeps breaking after the foot pedal goes up and down twice.  Frustration sets in.  Panic sets in.  What to do now?  Who can I ask to help sew these banners? Take a break.  Leave the machine alone for a couple of days.  Back at the machine – with the operating manual. What is wrong with the bobbin?  It’s not the right bobbin for this machine.  Rewind the thread on the proper bobbin.  Eureka!! It works. A sigh of relief and the seams get sewn – one batch of colours at a time.  OH-OH.  Have to make the flower stencils.  It takes one minute to trace three stencils on a piece of card stock – and hand cramps by the time 30 are done.  Got to take it easy and only make 25 stencils a day to save the hands.

Other crafts are chosen to fit into the theme. This year the theme was “Nature”, hence the paper plate owl and the nature collage for the younger age group. Due to the large number of craft kits to assemble, it was necessary to find the means of making large quantities. Mom’s Cricut machine was great to cut out all the animals needed for the collage. Fun foam stick-on shapes for the owl were easy to find.

Some crafts are chosen to enrich the stories being told by the storytellers. This year, there are several Indigenous storytellers. To ensure the crafts were appropriate, we got ideas from the source and chose crafts for the older children. More information was added to the instruction sheet so the youth could learn the background behind the craft. The Grandfather teaching bags were an excellent idea, but more work to adapt. A combination of a felt bag and leather strap was used based on cost. A levered crop-a-dile was borrowed to punch the holes. Finding a store with enough packages of needles (all the same size) was not easy. Good size river stones were difficult to find – so several bags were bought and sorted through by size- with the smallest stones being put into the flowerbed. The Inuit toy was one to entertain and develop hand-eye coordination. It was one of the easiest to put together – only three materials required.

As the crafts would be made at home, it was necessary to make sure that most homes would have scissors, white glue, markers/crayons, and paint. Normally, the Rangers would provide all the necessary materials and the children would provide the hands to make the crafts. The Rangers would supervise the children with the process, but now the parents or older adults in the home will be required to supervise and follow the instructions that come with the kit.

The crafts are an enrichment activity to which the children bring their creative imaginations. A sample is provided, but it is not necessary that the finished product be an exact replica. We hope that the children will enjoy the crafts chosen for this year. 

The Craft Committee (Pat, Suzanne, Andrea)