Comic Con 101

Today was an exciting day for me. I was lucky enough to showcase some of my crafts for some Suffolk County librarians. It was all a part of, Comic Con 101. An event for librarians to share ideas to create a Comic Con like experience at their own library for their teen patrons. I was glad to meet so many fellow librarians (and nerds). I was so honored that Barbara Moon asked me to participate. I even won a prize! I won this nifty Dave Roman picture!

Any way onto what I did. I focused my area on three different fandoms, Star Wars, Doctor Who and Zombies.

Last May 4th (May the 4th be With you) I held a very successful Star Wars program. It was so much fun and I was glad to see that the Yoda ears were a big hit among the librarians. Here is how you can make your own Yoda ears or Leia Buns.

Materials:
Green Card stock (Yoda Ears)
Brown card stock (Leia Buns)
White oak tag (head band)
Stapler
Markers
Gems (optional)

Instructions

• I free handed a template for some Yoda ears and made a bunch. Be sure to leave a flap (this gets folded and stapled to the head band, so your ears are all floppy) 
• The buns are just big circles 
• the head bands measured 1 1/2 inches x 21 inches 
• Trace and cut out all of your pieces! 
• The kids can decorate the ears/buns before assembling. You can use markers or gems to really glam up those Leia buns 
• Take the strap and measure it on your head then staple
• For the ears fold those flap (as mentioned earlier) and staple them to the headband
• You are ready to use the force! 

You can read about my complete Star Wars Day experience, here. Theres more info on light sabers, snacks and even some games! If your looking for more Star Wars stuff check it out! 

I was really excited to see that a lot of librarian's not only recognized the Doctor Who stuff but they loved it just as much as me! If you aren't familiar with the Doctor here are some quick facts:

• Doctor Who is a BBC series that has been on the air since 1963
• The Doctor is an alien, a Time Lord, from the planet Gallefrey. He is the last of the Time Lords and has two hearts
• He travels through time and space righting wrongs and fighting evil. This includes Daleks, Cyber men and the Angels
• He Traves via TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space). It has a perception filter making it look like a blue police box and it is bigger on the inside. 
• The Doctor hardly travels alone and has companions
• The Doctor's weapons of choice include, books, his wits and Sonic Screwdriver

I made some shrink plastic key chains as a craft example. They are quite simple and come out looking so great! Here is how you can make your own:

Materials:

• Shrink Plastic (better known as Shrinky Dinks) are avaible in blank or printable sheets.
• Sharpie Marker
• Colored Pencils 
• Scissors 
• Brown grocery bag
• Toaster Oven 

Instructions

• Do some digging online for images you want to use. Here is what I found: 

• Be sure to make the images bigger than your desired finished size (because they do shrink) I resized and configured the images in Publisher. Also the instructions of the shrink plastic inclue a sizing ruling to help you determine how small and image will become.

• Trace and color your images on the shrink plastic. Trace the image with sharpie marker (on the glossy side). Flip the plastic over and color with colored pencil on the other side (you can also use paint and markers as long as they are NOT waterbased! 
• Cut out your images. Punch a hole if you are creating charms
• Pre heat the toaster oven to 325 degrees
• While the oven is pre heating, take the brown grocery bag and cut out a rectangle shape. 
• Place plastic, colored side up, on top of rectangle shape and place it in the oven
• Be sure to keep an eye on it so it won't melt. You will see the plastic shrivel then flatten out. Once it is flat you can take it out of the oven and let them cool down

Zombies 

In October I held a zombie program for tweens and helped the teen librarian do a similar program for the older teens. This involved zombie make-up, a zombie fashion show and trivia questions. I also made a zombie survival game in which I presented the kids with a zombie senario with options. Their survival depended on which choices they made. For the tweens everyone survived, for the teens they all got infected and learned that the zombie apocalypse was caused by bad mayo.

The teen librarian also made up some Zombie standees and the kids used nerf guns and did some target practice. The teen librarian even volunteered as a walking target! The zombie target practice was a big hit so I brought the standees and a nerf gun to demonstrate.