How do you DIY?

Teen Tech Week is all about DIY @ YOUR Library this year!  RPL has LOTS of great books to get you on your way to finally make some of those crafts you've been pinning on Pinterest but never quite seem to get around to (you know who you are)!

Sew subversive : 

down & dirty DIY for the fabulous fashionista

Nails, nails, nails! : 25 creative DIY nail art projects

DIY Projects for the self-sufficient homeowner : 
25 ways to build a self-reliant lifestyle

DIY solar projects : 

how to put the sun to work in your home

Planet Yumthing do-it-yourself : 
create, design, reinvent, and make it yours!

Improv sewing : 101 fast, fun, and fearless projects

This week @ YOUR library:

Get SEW fabulous at Ginter Park's fab-lab this week!  Sew tired threads into fresh looks and stop by on Thursday for a special DIY bow tie lab.  Everyday this week, March 10-14th @ 4 pm.

North Avenue is celebrating Teen Tech Week with DIY-YA labs @ 3pm this week, the 10th-13th.

Upcycle those old floppy disks and CDs @ the Main Library on Wed @ 4pm!

And MORE!

DIY-YA: Teen Tech Week @ RPL

Richmond Public Library is celebrating Teen Tech Week again, and we are really excited because we have more branches involved. The theme for Teen Tech Week for this year is "DIY @ your library". Richmond Public Library always encourages their teen patrons to be expressive and creative by using upcycled materials to make re-purposed items. We have creative librarians and library staff who are welling to share their creative skills for awesome Teen Tech Week programs.  Here are our activities down below.

A lot of our programs have been geared towards career development for teens. It all started with our Teen Recyclable Craft Sale, which is held at Main in December and it has been very successful. This year we are working with the YA staff and teens at other branches to make the craft sale system wide.


We are setting a new trend for our teen programs and it is called "DIY-YA". If you are the type of teen who likes to be creative and explore new trends, check us out at RPL!

Tech Trends for Teens: Free Graphic Programs for Digital Art

Using Free Internet Tools to Make Cool Digital Art

As we gear up for Teen Tech Week and the RVA Sticker Contest this week, take advantage of free graphic tools, drawing, and graphic programs to meet your digital art creative needs.

Artpad is an online painting tool that allows you to see the paintbrush. You can change colors, brush sizes, paint opacity, and you can even splatter paint or write on your drawing. It will let you replay your drawing and save it or any frame from the replay.

Brushter is a free online painting website with a twist. Its paintbrushes all produce textured strokes. Like other painting websites, you can choose your colors, shades, and widths. You need the Adobe Shockwave Player to use it. This tool is produced by the National Gallery of Art.

Do Ink is a drawing and animation application that allows you to use vector-drawing tools to create your pictures.In addition to the traditional drawing tool, you also get art props that will add to the drawings you create. Do Ink is available only in a downloadable form for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

Draw Island allows you to paint or draw. It is unique in that you can create animations with this tool as well. However, the animation feature currently works only if you use Firefox (Mozilla) asyour Web browser.

FlockDraw is an excellent choice for collaborative business drawing. It allows an unlimited number of users to participate for free. Think of a community whiteboard in an online format and you will have the essence of FlockDraw.

Gimp is a very powerful image manipulation program, great for photo retouching and image creation. There are other downloads, GTK and runtime environment, required for this program to work properly. This program currently runs on Linux, Windows (XP and Vista), Mac OSX, and some Unix-based systems.

Graffiti Plado allows you to bring the street to your art. Use spray paint on a wall-textured background to create your ideas and save them. You can adjust color, size of the spray, strength, and even whether or not you want to see and hear the spray can while you paint.

Pixia Originally a Japanese only edition, Pixia is a very nice paint tool with full layers of support and many other features. The English version website does lack information and support so you will probably need to search the web for information on learning to use this tool. This is currently a Windows only program and does support some drawing tablets.

Odosketch is interesting because the sketches it creates resemble pencil and watercolor. The tips of your brush create both thin lines and wide ribbons. When you select your color you can also select the width of the tip. Create your sketch free online and then save it to your hard drive or disk.

Onemotion is an online painting website. It allows you to adjust brush width and color, but its unique feature is that your speed controls the width of your line.

Open Clip Art  is a site where you can download free clip art.

Skencil  is an interactive vector drawing program for Unix and Linux operating systems built on the Python language. This program has tons of features such as gradient fills, bezier curves and you can bend text along paths to name a few.

Sketchpad is a free online paint tool, but the effects it can create are awesome. There are stamp, wallpaper, geometric design, and fill options. Its unique color adjusting method allows you to visualize your scheme more easily. It also has an option of painting in two tones.

Ultimate Paint is an image creation and manipulation program for Windows systems. This is a pretty compact and fast-running graphics program with plenty of features.

Viscosity is a unique abstract art creation site. Like other online painting and drawing websites, you can save your work on your computer. The difference is you begin viscosity with a mixed palette, which you drag your “brush” through. This tool is a little more difficult to use effectively, but it is also extremely enjoyable.

Wixie has all the traditional paint and drawing options, but adds in three-dimensional, crayon, and stretch functions. This website also allows you to choose the texture of your fills.

Information was taken from Mashable.com and Smallbiztrends.com

Teen Tech Week -Check In @ your library!

During Teen Tech Week™ (March 10 - 16, 2013), the Richmond Public library invites you to Check In @ your library! 
With this year's theme, Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) wants to encourage libraries to open their physical and virtual doors to teens and showcase the outstanding technology they offer, from services such as online homework help and digital literacy-focused programs to resources like e-books, audiobooks, databases and more.

Here at RPL, we want the teens to experience all of the programs RPL has to offer.

Teen Tech Week will be celebrated at the Main and North Avenue Branches. There are so many exciting things to do, from the digital art contest to exploring new technology trends in an open laptop computer lab. You can find out more information by going to the Events Calendar on the library's website or call both branches for more details.

Here are some "cool" things to do on your own during Teen Tech Week.

• Follow us on our Social Media Outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr).
• Visit the library's Events Calendar for programs.
• Use Overdrive to access eBooks and Audiobooks.
• Try out a book-focused website like GoodReads, LibraryThing or Shelfari.
• Start a Teen Tech Club at your school or public library.
• Read and contribute to a blog about technology.
• Join a Teen Advisory Group (Main) or Teen Advisory Board (North Avenue).
• Use our databases located on the library's website.
• Volunteer at your library.
• Share ideas for the new teen page.
• Have a smartphone? Learn a new app.

Teen Tech Week, What a Blast!

Teen Tech Week 2012 at the Main library was a huge success. During the week, Teens and Tweens had the opportunity to learn and celebrate different things about technology. We were pretty amazed at the turn out for all the programs we had to offer, since this was our first Teen Tech Week program at Main.

The teens showed great enthusiasm for the Microsoft Publisher and the gaming programs which proved to be a great success. Next year we will be offering even more programs for Teen Tech Week.

By using Microsoft Publisher, teens and tweens used their creative minds to produce attractive posters and bookmarks about reading.

We used an online gaming site, GameStarMechanic.com, for our popular two part program. Game Star Mechanic allows children to develop games. But before they have the opportunity to create a game, they must complete a quest which helps the children understand different components of the game designing process. Once the quest was completed, they worked on their game.

As part of Teen Tech Week, we had a Wrap-Up party for all of those who attended. At the party, the teens had the opportunity to show off their games and Publisher creations.