Bracelets, buttons, monsters, and spooky editing! This was a jam-packed session. Today ended up being a girl-only day with a handful of girls coming back to Michigan Makers. We had a couple different crafts going on; all relatively simple and fun. There was the option to use stamps to decorate bookmarks or bracelets, make custom buttons with a button maker, use photo software to take photos of the school and edit them, and monster pillows were back.

We will start with a small oops. We were all ready to go with the button maker and were pretty excited too. Using a circle punch, students cut out images from magazines that they found fun or pretty to turn into buttons. The buildup was tense and the excitement was palatable. Then the worst thing happened. The button machine was not working. It had gotten banged a bit in transport. We were worried we had broken it. No tutorial or information manual was capable of fixing the button maker in the moment. It was a bit of a let down, but we did have a bunch of other activities with us. It was time to let go of the buttons for today.

For the physical crafts we had two options. We could create more monster pillows. Which is fast becoming a favorite of the group. Or you could make bracelets and bookmarks by stamping letter strips with a variety of stamps and inks. While I did not manage to get pictures of the finished bracelets I can tell you they were a smorgasbord of colors and images. One had a very strong pineapple theme to it. Too go along with the pineapple bracelet there was a pineapple monster pillow. As well as a cat and an owl monster pillow. Sewing skills are improving. Students are getting a better grasp of the whip stitch and are also having a blast creating their own sewing patterns to make new unique shapes.

The digital item of the day was photo editing. The idea was to take a photo of the school or something in the library and edit the photo to see what you can do with it. One student took a photo through the window of the building façade and with the help of Picmonkey she was able to make quite a chilling and spooky black and white Halloween inspired photo. I definitely would not want to go to the school she created in that photo.

All in all the session was filled with exciting things to try both in physical and digital media. I do also have good news to report. A few days after the session we were able to fix the button maker. Apparently a small magnet had found its way into the machine and it was just enough to prevent it from working properly. We look forward to bringing the button maker back finally turning our small circle punched pictures into buttons to wear with pride.

It’s boy versus girls in the ultimate stop motion movie show off! Today we combined the digital with the physical in creating stop motion movies. We had an even number of boys and girls show up, so when it was time to split up into teams they divided themselves up into a competition of the sexes. Through this activity personalities and leadership styles set the members apart and in some cases caused a little bit of conflict. The teams took radically different approaches and each came out with a movie in the end.

For the girls, one girl took on the role of the leader. She knew exactly what story she wanted to do so she took charge. She became the director, producer, writer and actor in one fell swoop. We tried to encourage story boarding to get the ideas flowing and create a coherent story but the girls were more interested in just jumping in. They used Legos, wax sticks, paper, fabric, and other materials to create their characters and scenery. They story was of a girl going to a haunted house. I encouraged one of the quieter girls to take charge of taking the pictures that would turn into the movie, while encouraging the other to speak up and participate. Their movie, while completed, was not the cleanest. Some pictures were blurry and the camera was not always held in the same spot so not all of the transitions were smooth. In a lot of their shots you could see their hands moving the pieces. Even so, they were proud that they had finished. In the future, it would be helpful to encourage them to think about ways in which they can improve their finished product.

The boys had a more difficult time with their production. In the beginning a lot of ideas were flowing and they really took to storyboarding their films. It took a while for them to transition into making props and filming. Compared to the girls, the boys took the tasks more seriously. There was some trial and error when it came to creating a device that would keep the camera in the same spot, ultimately they decided to hold the phone very still and hope that worked. Once they got started their attempts were fraught with technological complications. In the beginning there was debate on whether to have the app automatically take pictures or if they would manually take pictures. The automatic pictures went too quickly and it created a frantic energy in the group. For their movie the plan was to have a time lapse of them creating a building with Legos. There were debates on which Legos would go on in which order, along with debates on the sizes and types. The whole process seemed to create an energy of tension, riddled with minor disagreements and a constant feeling of being rushed against the clock. Unfortunately, when they did produce a film it was deleted by mistake. These boys were not willing to give up and kept working until they at the end of the day had a short GIF of the word “FAIL” written with Legos- which seemed to be their opinion on the whole process. While it didn’t work out they did not seem overly frustrated.

Both groups came at the challenge with a different perspective and mindset. While no group was particularly successful they both had fun. This is a challenge that I think will only get better with more practice and time for trial and error.

It’s the first day of Michigan Makers at Scarlett for the 2017-2018 school year! Today as an introduction into making we are making monster pillows. Monster pillows are pillows made with felt, thread, and embellishments, to create cute or scary monsters. Some of the skills the students will be learning are using a straight stitch or overcast stitch to close the edges of their monsters.

The students were ready to jump in once we introduced ourselves. There were a lot of questions about how to thread needles, and how to get started. However, once they mastered their basic stitch of choice they were ready to go all for it. Some went from crazy shapes out of the felt while others made more traditional square pillow shapes. For colors we had a couple different options making this a fun cast of monsters. Some students quickly learned that the larger the shape and the smaller the stitches the longer it took to finish sewing the pieces together to get to the stuffing and decorating part.

For decorations there was a big box of junk. The best part was exploring the box to see what was inside and see what could be made with all the random pieces of stuff. One student found a necklace that lit up when a switch was hit. There was plenty of yarn and string. As the items got more unique so too did the final monster creations. Even those who were not able to finish had fun monsters to show for it at the end of the day.