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Book community craft event Vancouver Volunteering

Enchanted Forest of Books

This year, the Scholastic Autumn Book Fair theme was ‘Enchanted Forest’. I volunteered to decorate a section of the school library as part of its magical transformation.

Considering the space, I was inspired to create some enchanted ‘flying’ books to hang above the readers. I hollowed out discounted children’s hardbacks and using Mod Podge to glue the pages open at different states, and hung them with nylon wire.

The signage was really fun to make, I painted wooden boards with freehand calligraphy and added autumnal detail and glass eyes for a touch of fantasy. I made headdresses for the librarians and signage for the cashiers to match.

Boards painted as signposts to imaginary destinations

I prepared faux foliage garlands and festooned the trees and windows, which looked beautiful with the light shining through the Fall colours. I added details to the trees such as battery-operated candles in lanterns, LED lights, sparkling rhinestones and strings of pretty ribbon with tags for the students to write on their book fair ‘wishes’.

Decoration for the book donation boxes
Our lovely librarians getting into the spirit!
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Los Angeles

Excelsior!

For this birthday party, our theme was inspired by trips to the California Science Center to see the Endeavour shuttle and NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida with our space-obsessed little one. I had fun painting some letter-shaped canvases and large canvas with galaxy-related imagery, and made garlands with fun sparkly foam stickers.

For treats, I made trays of multicoloured fudge, and rice krispie squares with swirly coloured chocolate sprinkled with edible stars.

As it was a barbecue at the park, we played space-related games outdoors such as an obstacle course with planets to orbit, black holes to avoid, astronaut helmets to fit, and robot dancing!

We played ‘pass the asteroid’ (a lumpy parcel with a Star Wars toy within each layer of wrapping) and I made a large board with a ‘solar system challenge’, velcro planets to rearrange into the right order radiating out from the sun.