By Amelia Tarallo
Hometown Weekly Staff
The Medfield Public Library is famous for its unique and captivating crafting classes. On Thursday, February 4, crafters met over Zoom to take on yet another project. This time, they were collaging.
Prior to the class, local attendees picked up a bag of supplies from the library. Inside, it contained blank gift tags, coffee dyed paper, Mod Podge, a paintbrush, a colorful napkin, a word bank, a plastic gift card, Sharpies, and images that referenced Valentine's Day. Attendees from further-flung locales put together their own kits using things from around their homes.
Meghan Maxfield led the class in making their collages. She started out by instructing attendees to take one tag from their supplies and coat one side with a layer of Mod Podge. With the coffee-dyed paper in hand, they pressed the Mod Podge side of the tag to the paper. “This way you have something on both sides,” said Maxfield. Attendees then used the plastic gift card to help remove any excess glue from the tag, gently dragging it down the length of the tag and wiping it out with a paper towel.
Attendees were then instructed to take the decorative paper napkin from each of their kits and remove it from its backing so only the design layer remained. With a variety of different styles, everyone’s collage was already beginning to look slightly different from one another.
As their napkin layer dried, collagers took time to view some of the different pictures that might fit well into their pieces. “Looking at your napkin and the colors that you’re working with, decide what you think works with it and pick something to be the focal point,” Maxfield encouraged. Some attendees picked flowers while others pasted on a heart. Other participants cut out some of the vintage graphics, such as an invitation to a Valentine's Day dance and a picture of a Victorian woman.
The second to last step in the activity consisted of further customizing their collage by adding different Valentine's-themed words from a word bank. Other participants used words cut out from newspapers, ads, and old books they had lying around.
What began as a simple crafting exercise turned out to be a lesson in not only collaging, but also individuality. Despite most participants having the same supplies, each tag came out completely differently - perfect gifts for the upcoming holiday.
