Handheld Fans
Every April, the Water Conservation Garden on campus hosts a garden festival.
Classes organize booths to explain their subject matter, vendors sell trinkets, and the school nursery sells its plants material.
Teachers often bribe us with extra credit if we show to work the booth, or provide handout materials.
To ensure I receive an 'A' in the class, I decided to make handheld fans (though it wasn't as hot today as it was a few days ago).
I spent hours and hours looking up the information, typing up the sheets, reducing and enlarging and copying onto card stock.
I was at Kinkos until past 2am last night, and still needed to get up early this morning and assemble the fans.
Butterfly fan front
I had wanted to use paste, thinking regular glue would buckle the paper, but there was no time to buy anything.
Double stick tape, rubber cement, or glue sticks don't hold long enough, though they certainly would have been easier.
I ended up using what I had on hand, which was school glue, spread on thinly with a stick, then added a touch of glitter.
Hummingbird and Bees fan fronts
After all the hours, the ideas, the assembly, the expense...my teacher gave me quite a lackluster response.
I had cleared both the idea and the content with her first, yet when she saw the fans she asked, "what are they?".
Okaaaay.....
She said it was too windy and too cold to hand them out, and she'd keep them for next year.
She barely even glanced at the content.
I guess you can say she wasn't a fan of my fans.
Sigh.
What a let down.
I made 90 total.
Thirty each of three styles.
Only one color pic because the copying is so much more expensive.
I got all the images on Flickr, in the group that shares collage images for art use.
I had wanted to cut the paper into ovals, but opted for a half circle and rectangles to save time.
I think they're still cute.
I used jumbo-sized popsicle sticks for the handles (though I've read that paint-stir sticks are a good option too).
The backs listed plants, specifically California natives, that attract butterflies, hummingbirds, or bees.
I also listed some suggestions, such as not to use chemical insecticides, to provide shelter, etc
Quickly assembled, so they're simple (meaning not quite up to my usual perfectionist standards), but a cute idea I think.
It would be fun to make embellished fans for a party, and add sparkly ribbon ties.
Labels: hand crafted by me