6.+Monday+Funday+Photo+Album+(Rehoboth+Beach+Library)

=Monday Funday =

Mondays can be hard to face for elementary-aged students, so I wanted to create a program that helped them look forward to Mondays. I also wanted to create a program that encouraged children to express their creativity and artistic individuality in fun and unique ways, using supplies that are affordable and easily obtained but perhaps a little different from just crayons and construction paper. (Sometimes we //do// use crayons and construction paper, but we try to use them in unusual ways.)

Monday Funday was born in November 2011, and it proved to be a big hit! Below are some of the crafts we have made.



**Fall Leaves:** Swirled shaving cream and food coloring create a marbled look on cardstock.



**Sculpey Candle Holder:** A tealight or votive inside a candle holder covered in polymer clay gives the effect of stained glass.





**Painted Christmas Ornaments:** Metallic acrylic paint inside plastic ornaments creates beautiful swirls of color.



**Handmade Boxes:** These boxes were made from leftover Christmas cards.





**Pass the Painting:** These paintings were the result of a cooperative project. Each participant painted on a canvas for 4 or 5 minutes, passed the canvas to his or her right, then painted on whatever canvas had just landed at his or her place. At the end of the session, everyone had a unique painting to which the entire group had contributed.







**Window Clings and Paper Hearts:** The fireplace in the Children's Area of the library is decorated with snowflake window clings, which we made using fabric paint. (The window clings can be made in any shape or color, and the clings on the fireplace were changed seasonally.) The paper hearts hanging from the mantle are an easy Valentine's decoration made from decorative paper.

**Rainbow Concertina:** This twist on a rainbow was made for St. Patrick's Day from strips of construction paper.



<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Junk Mail Flowers:** These folded-paper flowers are made from pages of catalogs and magazines.



<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Flower Pounding:** Fresh flowers, paper, and a hammer lead to beautiful transfers of pigment that can be used to decorate cards or bookmarks.





<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Foil Paintings:** I love painting with non-traditional tools and on non-traditional surfaces. The participants unleashed their creativity by painting on foil and then removing some of the paint with a cotton swab to allow the metallic shimmer to show through the paint. They gave their paintings a more finished look by framing or matting their pictures with construction paper.