I spent roughly an hour today and an hour yesterday researching and coming up with the last 9 potential craft ideas for the Art Buddies program. It didn’t take me as long as coming up with the first 11, but it was definitely more difficult than the first time around. Most of my early hours spent before practicum began were spent in calls with Mari and Heidi, (who are the Art Buddies coordinators), and coming up with craft ideas was a breeze my first go around. After my first initial ideas though, I was struggling a little bit at where to go from there. Even though only a small fraction of them are actually going to be used, I wanted each of the ideas to seem unique. I hope none of them retread the same idea, or are too reliant on just ‘drawing’ to form a craft. Scouring the internet for ideas was a little bit fruitless in the beginning, since I had to rule out a lot of potential crafts due to some of the restrictions around the crafts and if it would be conducive to being sent in the mail. I couldn’t do anything too messy or sticky, such as finger painting. Nor could I use anything with glitter, or anything too complex.
I’m really looking forward to discussing my 20 craft ideas with Mari. It’s going to be really fun getting to explain them in more detail, but it’ll be a bit crushing having to decide which ones are on the chopping block. In the end we may only end up using three to five of those ideas, but at least we’ll know we chose the best ones out of the bunch. I hope we can get a jump on what exactly I can do to help their organization between now and when the Pen Pal Program begins, because I’m a little bit worried about not having enough to really fill in my hours.
Although this week didn’t give me much to do, once Mari and I decide on what crafts to go with, I can spend my time gathering the materials and actually making the crafts myself!