Happy Holidays from the ACC Library Stacks

The library is stocked full of resources on making and admiring functional and decorative craft in all sorts of media. With the holiday season well upon us, we took a moment to see what we have in the stacks. It is most definitely an eclectic mix.

Do you want to make something reminiscent of what you did in elementary school? There's a book for that! Elementary Teacher's Arts and Crafts: Ideas for Every Month of the Year has some classics, from parchment stained glass windows made with salad oil and crayon, to salt dough ornaments. In The Foxfire 40th Anniversary Book: Faith, Family, and the Land, Josephine Miller reminisces: "Us kids, we took a big cardboard box, cut a little Christmas tree out of it, propped it up on our library table in the livin' room, made little ornament things for it, put it on the tree, and had the best little tree."

A more advanced project found in Tincraft by Lucy Sargent is using V-8 cans, tin snips, and Weldit Cement to create the Star of Bethlehem. With pinecones, a jackknife, and florists' wire, you can make Christmas package ornaments as described in How to Make Whirligigs and Whimmy Diddles and Other American Folkcraft Objects. Make a revolving Christmas pyramid of wood - turned by the heat of candles - with the instructions in the Reinhold Craft and Hobby Book.

The library also has several resources dedicated to menorahs. Luminous Art: Hanukkah Menorahs of the Jewish Museum showcases more than 100 Hanukkah lamps from every part of the world. The materials used to craft these lamps are varied; silver, brass, bronze, pottery, glass, and wood. "Hanukkah Lamp Showcase" was an exhibition at the National Museum of American Jewish History from 1984-1985. The Jewish Museum San Francisco created an exhibition in 1995 called "Light Interpretations: A Hanukah Menorah Invitational." Both of these catalogs include work by artists in the American Craft Council College of Fellows.

Make a fun, quick-and-simple craft wreath (plastic bags tied onto a shaped coat hanger, as described in Elementary Teacher's Arts and Crafts), plan ahead for next year and save some V-8 cans, or enjoy images of some beautiful holiday art. Stop by the library (if you can), and enjoy these and the rest of our resources!

A weekly shout out to the printed word, From the Stacks highlights what's new and what's loved in the American Craft Council library.