Text and Java

  Last night we held our third annual PeepApalooza, which for the uninitiated, is basically all of the leftover Easter candy+shoe boxes+creativity I stocked up on Peeps a few days after Easter and the ladies at Payless really hooked me up this year with four trash bags of shoe boxes. All with lids! We had a great turnout, mostly families. I wish I could post more photos here, but I took pictures of the kids holding their masterpieces and I'm not sure what the legal situation is with library kids on personal blogs. If you want to see more, check out the pix on #bclsreads, our Instagram tag. Or check out my post on last year's PeepApalooza .       As usual, my boss outdid herself with the Peepbusters. She says she was inspired when she found the oversized Peeps at a local store. I love the effort she put in on the background.      Not to be outdone, I redid the cover of one of my favorite books.  It never fails to amaze me ho...

This craft was so awesome, it deserved its own post, but I did not actually get around to it until now (hangs head in shame). However, I hope someone can use it next summer, or maybe for a beach party craft in March. Why not? During the beach party , I created sand tables by taping rolled newspaper all the way around one of our activity tables and then covering it in plastic tablecloths, which I then taped to the table as well. I got that idea from a librarian who used that idea with her Lego crafts. Then, at home, I mixed up about 6 batches of this clay . The clay kept overnight in plastic containers with a wet paper towel tucked in there. In fact, it was so moist, I had to air it out a bit before the craft. We shaped the castles by hand, and I supplied shells, toothpicks and triangles cut from construction paper (for flags) as well as glue sticks. Everyone was told to work tiny, as these bad boys take forever to dry. I gave everyone a paper plate (cake serving size) and wrot...