Summer Kick-Off: Tie Dye and Paint Party!!

Last Tuesday, the teens officially kicked off summer reading with the annual tie dye program.  This year I added some other colorful elements, including squirt gun painting and crayon art.  The weather was perfect, so the teens were able to work on their projects outside. 

Some of the teens made tie dye shirts first...

...while others used squirt gun and paint to decorate a sheet.  It turned out awesome!  The original idea was to hang the sheet in the teen department at the new library but the teens were so attached to their masterpiece that now I have to very carefully cut it into 20+ squares.

Then others worked on making crayon art with old crayons and a hair dryer (thanks Pinterest).  It was a bit messy but the canvases looked fabulous.  I wanted to keep these for the teen department too but we raffled them off to three lucky participants.

The teens I work with continue to surprise me with their creativity and eagerness to try new things.  Today we made magazine picture frames (I will write a post about this later) and many of the girls had their tie dye shirts on or said they turned out really well and were going to wear them to the next program. 

Summer 2012 is off to a great start at the library!