Wizard of Oz Celebration

One of our Summer Reading programs was a Wizard of Oz puppet show. To enhance the performance, I had a full-on Wizard of Oz-themed shindig before the show.

There was a yellow brick road from the library entrance up to our conference room. It was yellow bulletin board paper that we drew bricks on with a Sharpie. A testament to my insanity.

The fringe curtain I found at Oriental Trading. All of the middle tinsel was torn out by the end of the event.

Once inside, patrons could choose from several different crafts or activities. The first table was a Wizard of Oz Scavenger Hunt, which could all be found upstairs in the Children's Room.

This was a printable from the blog B. Nute Productions. I wrote the clues to fit our library. If I hadn't been short on time, I would have edited it to make "witches" possessive instead of plural (or singular, in Glenda's case). Oh, well.

Once all 10 clues were found, players were awarded with a giant lollipop.

The next table over was the Hot Air Balloon Craft. Hanging from the ceiling between these two tables was a rainbow, which I didn't seem to get a picture of.

I found this craft from Crafty Morning. That's also where I snagged the images for the instruction page:

There was also Pin the Heart on the Tinman:

Beside this was our projector screen, which was playing the 1939 "The Wizard of Oz" film.

There was also a Green Spectacles craft, compliments of Harrington Harmonies:

Sticking out from the door to the craft room were the ruby slippers, still on the witch's feet.

Another craft was the Wizard of Oz Flip Cubes, which I found at Tried & True.

I had to modify these a little bit to be able to do a Print & Cut with my Cricut. The original images were hand-drawn and the lines weren't dark enough for my Cricut to pick up...here are the images that I modified.

I also ordered Scarecrow craft kits from Oriental Trading, and that was another table:

And a lion mask for when we're feeling cowardly:

Another activity was Melting the Witch, which was a big, messy hit. I found this idea at Sugar, Spice, & Glitter. I made the hats, but the cauldrons were leftover from our Harry Potter night.

I cut out the Flying Monkeys with the Cricut on black poster board. One of them even has Toto! The images I used can be found here.

The library just got a brand new poster printer a few days before this event. To break it in, I printed out this backdrop in three sections, and attached them together. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

I also made Wizard of Oz party hats to go with the backdrop, but kids grabbed them fast and wore them through the whole thing. They even had them on during the puppet show.

I saw these on Pinterest, but it was linked back to a shop where they were no longer available. So I made them.

I used some donated hats from CAP as a template, to measure and cut out scrapbook paper in blue gingham, mustard, hunter green, and silver.

I hot glued the paper directly to the Powerpuff Girl hats, and embellished them for each character.

That's raffia for the Scarecrow, a red pompom for Dorothy, and tinsel fringe yarn for the lion. The cuff on the Tin Man hat is folded aluminum foil, and the topper is wadded up foil I hot glued on.

On to the Puppet Show! The puppet show was done by Stevens Puppets with vintage marionettes, and it. was. fabulous! I mean, look at these:

There were more decorations I wanted to make (a tornado, poppies for the yellow brick road, a melted witch), and a ruby slippers craft, and I wanted to have some refreshments (I even bought an Emerald City-looking silicone mold for green Jello!) but I had several issues come up, had to miss a few days of work, and just ran out of time. Maybe next time....