Tag Archives: art

Barbarians? We Got ‘Em!

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It’s time to get loud, proud, raucous, and rowdy…the barbarians have arrived at story time!

We read Great, Now We’ve Got Barbarians! Written by Jason Carter Eaton, and illustrated by Mark Fearing (Candlewick Press, 2016). When a young man refuses to follow his mom’s orders to clean his room, he doesn’t just get pests…he gets barbarians! Soon they’re chomping cheese curls, infesting the garage, stealing pillows to make forts, and having crumb wars. Exasperated and desperate, the boy finally cleans his room. Thankfully, the barbarians skulk away. Things are peaceful again…until the boy lets the bathtub overflow one night and…oh no! PIRATES!

This story time project is a fantastic example of how we upcycle materials and reuse items from other programs. With the exception of the helmet, this entire project was sourced from previously used materials! Let’s take a look…

The barbarian costume basically consist of a helmet, tunic, belt, and sword. The helmet instructions can be found in this post. The tunics were cut from the white fabric photo backdrop we used at our thrift store costumes challenge. You can see it here, right behind Veruca Salt…

veruca-salt-costume

The brown and gold belts for the barbarian costumes were cut from yet another photo backdrop, this time from our Great Catsby event!

Two children standing in front of a decorative art deco curtain while an adult takes their photo.

The tunics were topped of with “fur” (i.e. brown felt that found its way to our library from a campus theater production). We used some metallic markers, metallic dot stickers, plastic jewels, and masking tape to fancy everything up. As you can see, we had some seriously awesome barbarian duds!

But the runaway favorite of the entire ensemble were the swords. The foam shafts are retired archival foam spine support strips from the Special Collections reading room. We pushed the foam into toilet paper tube hilts and decorated them lavishly.

Then we screamed and had sword fights for over 20 minutes. It was right before the holidays, so it was an absolutely perfect high energy, low mess story time!

Pop’s Top 10: Literary Gowns

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Remember when this dress premiered on the Eras Tour? We do! The custom Vivienne Westwood gown is filled with the lyrics from Track 10 of Tay’s 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department. It inspired us to seek out more artists and designers who took literary fashion to the next level. So today we present Pop’s Top 10 literary gowns!

#1 GONNA BE GOLDEN

Created by Ryan Jude Novelline, the artist stitched together the colorful illustrations from discarded Little Golden Books, and fashioned a bodice from the spines. If you’d like to read an interview about his amazing creation, please follow this link.

#2 BOOK WITCH

From Reddit

Posted on Reddit, the detailing on this dress is off the charts! Plus, the hat! The HAT.

#3 SUPER SEUSS

Created by Rebecca Humes, the Seuss-specific shredded tutu and bouncy book characters on springs is delightfully whimsical!

#4 DISNEY DANCER

Another dress by Rebecca Humes. But this one was created from Disney books and features a skirt composed of thousands of chain links. WOW!

#5 POTTER PROM

Hailey Skoch rustled her way to her Arkansas senior prom in a dress made from multiple volumes of Harry Potter books! You can read more about her process here.

#6 FANTASTIC FAIRY

Winner of cutest, most adorable wings and folded tutu is this phenomenal book fairy!

#7 VOLUMINOUS VOLUMES

This distinct dress with a colonial flare was created by White Knight Cosplay. And just look at that teacup broach!

#8 FAIRY TALE FASHIONISTA

A stack of unwanted volumes transformed into a fairy tale worthy dress by Helen Hobden, who also entered it in a contest judged by Maisie Williams! Read more about her adventure here.

#9 BOUND TO IMPRESS

French designer Silvie Facon created this flowing masterpiece from old leather spines that had separated from books. It took 250 hours! More more extensive photos, plus more dresses, please follow this link.

#10 SHORT STORY

Silvie Facon also created this sassy little folded dress, again by only using books that were beyond repair. For more details, please see this link.

Feeling inspired but also maybe a tad overwhelmed by the sheer volume of talent? No worries! You can craft this simple origami newsprint dress by following the instructions here.

Pssst! We also made a Cinderella dress out of highly unusual materials! See that here.

A Very Spirited Performance

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Turn down the lights and astound your audience with tales of adventures, hauntings, and astounding plot twists! Best of all, no special screen needed…it’s parchment paper from your home pantry.

We read Gilbert the Ghost by Guido Van Genechten (Clavis, 2014). Gilbert is not like the other ghosts at Ghost School. For starters, he was born blush, not ghostly white. And while other ghosts are shouting “Booooo!” Gilbert can only say “Ba…ba…bahoo!” For this, he is banished to the Abandoned Tower. But it’s not quite abandoned, and thus begins Gilbert’s wonderful friendship with Meow the cat. The roommates claim the tower for their own, and make it into the coziest little haunt you’ve ever seen. Soon, there are many visitors, but only one ghost who can say “Bahoo!”

You’ll need:

  • A rectangle of corrugated cardboard (we used a 10″ x 14″ cake pad)
  • A theater banner from the template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ paper
  • Small boxes to prop the theater up
  • Parchment paper
  • Black poster board
  • 3 drinking straws
  • 2 LED votive candles
  • Scissors and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Box cutter
  • Hot glue

To create the front of your theater, cut a window into a piece of corrugated cardboard. Then use markers to decorate the cardboard stage (or use patterned tape and star stickers like we did). Add a banner from the template, and you’re done!

Flip the cardboard over, then tape or hot glue a piece of parchment paper on top of the window. This is your theater screen. Attach a strip of poster board to the bottom of the screen to create a pocket for your scenery to sit in during performances. Finish by hot gluing small boxes to the base to prop your theater up, making sure they are tall enough for two LED lights to stand on either side of the screen.

Now for the entertainment! Cut 3 pieces of scenery and 3 puppets from black poster board, then tape drinking straws to the top of the puppets.

It’s showtime! Fire up those LED votive lights and enjoy!

And while we had some wonderful ghostly tales being told at Ethan’s Pika Theater…

And some intrepid cats on adventures elsewhere in the library…

At Seraphina’s theater, there were some distinct holiday vibes happening!