Teen Programs - Fall starts

Teens are hard to create programs for. You never know what's going to appeal to them or what will be a bust. This past Autumn was the first time the library I work at had teen programming. There were three programs: Mosaics (Craft); Teen Open Mic (Community); and Beading (Craft). I didn't pick these titles nor did I have a clear idea on what I'll be doing. After some searching through websites and craft books I settled on making picture frame mosaics and hardware jewelery.

I really did not know what kind of response I would get for the programs. So I went out gathered up my supplies and sent out for my advertising.

Two things I learned quickly were: get your supplies earlier than you need to so there's no last minute hurrying and get your advertising out earlier than ever and hit as many places as you can to reach as many people as you can.

Sadly, the Picture Frame Mosaics program cost the most money and was a complete bust with no one showing up. :-( Thankfully, I was able to return some items to put toward my other programs.

After much debate over what the rules and guidelines for the Teen Open Mic will be, that also turned out into a bust with no one showing up. In fact, it was a very slow night at the branch with only five people in the building for pretty much the whole night. This is another one of those "too little advertising" things.

So my final program comes up, I'm all bummed out expecting no one to show, and guess what? I get teens! Two at first, a boy and girl both on the older teen side of the spectrum and then two more girls on the younger side and then two more girls also on the younger side of the teen spectrum. So in total I had six teens! So what was my beading program? It was hardware jewelery. I got this idea out of AlternaCrafts by Jessica Vitkus. Here's a picture from the book:
In simple terms: using macramé knots and hardware nuts and washers to make bracelets and necklaces. The older teens loved the idea! The younger teens, not so much. But luckily I had some stashed beaded bracelet kits that they liked and each of them put two or three together. This was one of the cheapest and easiest programs to recreate:

1. The hardware was pretty cheap. In Wally-World I found stainless steel packages of various sizes of nuts and washers. About $5-6 per package. The amount in the package varies on the size of the hardware. There were also zinc coated nuts and washers for cheaper.
   
2. The instructions in the book called for waxed cord. I had a little trouble finding that but decided to substitute hemp instead. Knowing that hemp won't appeal to everyone, I also found some cotton cord (not waxed) in Wally-World in different colors. There was four different colors to a pack and about 30 yards of each color. I remember there was enough of each color to make 4 bracelets. That was about $2 per package.
   
3. The beading kits that were hanging around forever and a day probably came out of Oriental Trading or S&S Worldwide. It's good to stock up on these while they are on sale. They're great to keep stashed away and they have plenty of seasonal themes, too.
4. I photocopied the instructions for how to do the macramé knot from the book so that there were readily copies available for each teen.
5. Candy was available for munching, and the teens had fun just chatting about school and life in general.

What I need for next time is a camera to document my awesome crafty teens!

My winter programs don't start until January. This time around there's a little more variety with a computer program, a craft program and a movie.