Teen Tech Month: Week 4

This week's project: felt iPod/mp3 player/cell phone covers! I was super psyched for this one, but was a little underwhelmed by the response I got. My first group wanted to make them, but maybe had a bit of trouble in the execution.

I set out paper and card stock so they could sketch and make templates before they cut (thereby saving tons of felt being wasted by making wrong cuts or drawing directly on the felt and not liking the design and scrapping it). I told them what it was for, but they didn't listen. I had one girl place her design smack dab in the middle of the felt and cut it. Alright, I didn't clarify that ahead of time, so I corrected her - no problem - except on of my other girls wasn't listening and not only drew a design in the middle directly on the felt, but she messed it up and had to draw another - again, in the middle of the felt. This might normally not really be an issue, but with these holders, it takes a lot of felt from one sheet to make, so she rendered that sheet useless for that purpose. This was a day for banging my head against a wall. (To make envelopes- just take a long sheet of felt, width a little larger than your iPod, fold in half, and glue along two sides)

The first girl (who is also the youngest - she's 10), kept saying she didn't know how to do it, and was just in general not trying very hard at all. I had to hold her hand through the entire thing. Then my kid who's, well, special came and since he doesn't have an iPod and wouldn't know the first thing on how to make much of anything, I started cutting out a finger puppet for him. After I was done with his, I thought it was really cute, so I made a Domo puppet for myself. (Domo finger puppet not pictured b/c I don't know what happened to him). It was a difficult program, and I wasn't looking forward to Thursday.

Thursday crowd didn't really want to make iPod covers either. I suspect this has more to do with their ludicrous idea that any thing Apple makes is junk, rather than lack of wanting to craft. I took out my Domo finger puppet and showed it to them, and some of them got on board. One kid made a whole set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (really basic, stylized puppets, but cool). Once they got started, they really got into making them. I decided to to Spongebob and I think he came out quite nicely.

I guess you really have to know your audience for this one. If your teens are as obsessed with their iPods as I am, this is probably a good project - otherwise I'd skip it. I searched a lot online for a great assortment of felt colors, but for the most part I wasn't satisfied until I found Felt-O-Rama. They have a great variety pack of recycled eco-felt for only $15. I used Liquid Stitch to hold together, but it takes a long time to dry (and teens are often impatient), so I would use a hot glue gun instead.