Celebrating Gay Pride With Teens: Rainbow Mobiles

Everyone loves a rainbow. And everyone loves a mobile. Mobiles are a cheap, easy craft that can be accomplished within an hour and taken in a variety of directions.

The best thing about using the rainbow mobile to celebrate Gay Pride is you can go both general:

Or incorporate the full meaning of the Rainbow Flag into your mobile craft:

Celebrating Gay Pride With Teens: Rainbow Loom Gay Pride Rainbow Bracelets

If you've given it some thoughts and floss Friendship Bracelets are just too much for you, consider the Rainbow Loom Gay Pride Rainbow Bracelet. Rainbow Loom is still popular, the double fishtail-style bracelet is super easy to make and teach and the program is attractive to kids and teens alike.

Still super cheap.

A pack of 600 rubber bands with 24 C-clips are $2.99/each at Michael's, you'd need to purchase six bags to complete the colors of a rainbow. 

And the best part is you can make rainbow looms and hooks for free using basic library components:

-book donations that won't fit into your collection and are sure not to sell in the book sale

-pushpins

-a hammer

-paper clips

Hammer two pushpins into the edge of an unloved book one inch apart:

Then you'll break a paper clip to use as your hook (like I needed to show you):

Easiest bracelet ever! YouTube double fishtail rainbow loom instructions. The whole program can be done in under an hour.

Celebrating Gay Pride with Teens: Pride Rainbow Friendship Bracelets

Creating and executing craft programming for teens can be hard for some of us librarians.

You have to find a project you not only think you can do but also be able to teach to teens and pre-teens from ages 12ish-18ish. Add to that (the mistaken, in my opinion) belief that you have to complete this craft project in an hour. 

My feeling on the subject is that if you provide participants with detailed instructions for how to complete a craft project and it's clear and relatively attainable, you not only don't have to abide by the strict one hour rule but you're giving them the information to recreate and perfect upon that project again after the program is long over. Otherwise, it's just one-off entertainment that, more often than not, winds up in the trash shortly thereafter. I have a seven year old who attends library programs, so I feel I can say that with some authority.

Hence, the Pride Rainbow Friendship Bracelet!

Believe me, I know, friendship bracelets are hard. I've printed out and given up on countless friendship bracelet patterns for just that reason. Which is why I ALWAYS return to the chevron bracelet. There must be a reason why it's the only one I can competently do and so can you!

The best thing about Rainbow Bracelets is that they're universally loved and open to interpretation. Gay Pride. Pretty bauble. They're for everyone! And they're cheap! All you need are packets of floss which can be found at Michael's for $3.99/pack.

In the spirit of information sharing, here is a jpeg of my directions for making Pride Rainbow Friendship Bracelets.

AND if that's still too much. Consider variations on the Pride Rainbow Friendship Bracelets using the Rainbow Loom. You can make a loom for the double fishtail bracelets seen here with a few pushpins in cardboard, nails into discarded wood, or even plastic forks with the middle tongs bent in.

Project Runway: Unconventional Library Materials

Our library's potential participation in Los Angeles' Gay Pride Parade inspired me to imagine how we could celebrate libraries within the context of a rocking, flamboyant parade loaded with pageantry and humor.

Maybe I was in the midst of watching a Project Runway season at that moment but I thought what better way to embrace libraries than melding them with one of today's most iconic television shows that has a huge gay following and its signature Unconventional Challenge that makes an appearance every season challenging contestants to utilize on materials found in a hardware store or a candy store or construction sites for the components to design their creations with.

Only in this case I could be using ALL THOSE BOOK DONATIONS that never make it onto the shelves or don't sell at the book sales!

Sometimes my revelations are really only revelations to me. This may be one of those times. At first, the thought inspired me to troll Pinterest for examples of book page fashion. And what did I find!

Here are some of my favorites:

Between now and June I've made it my goal to start small and create simple, fun wearable creations using book materials from our big mountain of donations.

Unconventionally Library Challenge #1: Art Book Top Hat

Celebrating Gay Pride With Teens In the Library

In Los Angeles Gay Pride Month is in June. It's also the first month of most library Summer Reading Clubs (or as we here now call it "Summer Fun" so as to not alienate the not-so-gungho-readers from the other fun stuff happening in the branches) which makes it the perfect time to introduce an LGBTQ-themed craft or program for teens.

And what better way to do it than with RAINBOWS!

The Rainbow Flag has become synonymous with gay pride, diversity and equality for everyone. Aren't you glad such a universal symbol of smiles and happiness was usurped when it came time to plan LGBTQ-themed programming?

When I couldn't find a flyer or online resource I liked, I created a Rainbow Flag flyer that describes the history of the flag and the meaning of the colors using age-appropriate language. It looks exactly like this:

Now came the easy part. RAINBOW PROGRAMMING!

You don't need me to tell you about all the fun things you can do with rainbows. But in the event you adore me and am curious about some of the things I'm contemplating, check out my LGBTQ Teen Programming board on Pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.com/hillaryesta/lgbtq-kid-teen-programming/

More to come on some of the fun stuff I've got in mind to celebrate Gay Pride!