Book Week 2019 – Reading is my Secret Power Display
The theme for Book Week 2019 is Reading Is My Secret Power and there are so many ways you could interpret this theme for display ideas. Traditionally, I decorate our circulation desk window (four, large tinted windows that sit behind out prominent circulation desk) with some interpretation of the CBCA artwork. 
This year the CBCA Book Week 2019 artwork has been created by Bob Graham.
Here is my interpretation.
I loved that the Bob Graham artwork takes the idea of reading giving people and animals to achieve their dreams, giving them power beyond what one might first assume (or at least that’s how I’m looking at it.) The little bird locked in the cage, through the power of reading, is able to transform into a free and magnificent creature.
The CBCA merchandise, including bookmarks and bunting, also show a goldfish transformed into a whale, a girl dreaming of soccer, a hen either remembering her youth or perhaps a dream to have a chicken, and a young boy having a lightbulb moment. I used the bird and goldfish in my display and also added a kitten who, through reading, transforms into a tiger.
Display elements:
Little animals: I cut the animals, including the goldfish, kitten and bird and cage with out library Cricut using basic silhouette shapes. I added backing card and bright books for them to read.
Tiger: I also cut the tiger shape with the Cricut and then added fur by cutting strips of orange and black tissue paper, frilling the edges with lots of tiny cuts and hot gluing that to the tiger shape. A bit of a haircut around the edge finished the look.
Large bird: Again, the shape was cut on the Cricut. I then hot glued on red, yellow and gold feathers.
Bird without its feathers.
Whale: I initially planned to paint the top part of the window display with the underside of a whale, as if it was swimming past. However, after painting it and being asked numerous times “what is that?” and then told, “oh, I thought it was a ___” (insert “cloud, shadow, grey blob”, I decided to remove the whale (which was easy to do as I used removable window paint – recipe here). The plan is to instead create a decorated little whale or perhaps flying fish. I’ll update this post when I have done that.
Bunting: Bunting can be purchased from the CBCA website. I created mine using the free social media title from the CBCA website.
Lettering: I cut the lettering on the library Cricut machine using the font Beautiful Thangs.
Excellent Ideas! Loving your blog. It;s giving much needed inspiration! Just one question, how did you cut out the pheonix with the cricut? It seems much bigger than the Cricut I have so wondering if you have a larger one or if it’s printed in stages? (I’m a very new librarian trying to work it all out!)
Thank you so much for your kind words. Yes, the phoenix is much larger than your average Cricut mat. I think it actually took about 4 A3 pieces and 6 cuts. If you are working from one of the older Cricut models, those that use the cartridges, I’m not sure how you would do it. With the newer models, when designing with DesignSpace drag your image to the size you want it. Then add a shape. Make that large enough to cover one section of the original image, highlight the two and use the slice tool. Delete the unnecessary bits and you are left with an original shape that has the newer shape cut out of it. You can use this method to slice your design up into mat sizes. There are plenty of tutorials on the web that explain it far better than I have it here. I adore the slice tool. It’s so good for so many things and it means you can create a project as large as you could possibly want. Hope that helps and happy creating!! Let me know how you go.
Thank you so much for your reply! Very helpful for aCricut novice! We ahve one of the newer models so I believe it is doable. Might be a last minute attempt to add to our book week display! 🙂
My pleasure. Good luck. I’d love to hear how you go with it.