flannel story

once or twice a year, i try to create a new flannel story for whatever storytime theme kit i’m building at work (we each build 1-3 kits, then rotate among branches to lessen each individual’s workload.  it’s brilliant.)  this season, i’m building “grumpy day” and “in my pocket.”  “grumpy day” was my idea (ironic, considering this blog’s general theme, but trust me–stories about grumpy days can be really funny.  and they make you appreciate un-grumpy days so much more!) but “in my pocket” was one someone else had done years ago and i thought i’d resurrect it.  “pocket” has lots of different pocket-y stories–kangaroos of course, but also stories about things kids have stashed in their pockets, new pockets being sewn onto items of clothing, etc.  there’s more out there on pockets than you might think!  and grumpy day has a plethora of good titles to pick from, but there weren’t very many flannel story options for either of these themes.  so, i decided to make some.  i’m kind of meh on the pocket story, but for “grumpy” i decided to do kevin henkes’ book, “a good day.”  it’s a very simple, very lovely story about four animals who start the day off very sad for various reasons and end the day feeling very happy and making a little girl happy in the process.  the illustrations are fantastic and although i tried to come up with a way to make a flannel story for it without blatantly copying…. nothing else i tried did justice to the original.  so, mr. henkes, i hope you don’t mind that i traced your beautiful artwork onto milk filters and made this set:

this was my first time working with milk filters and if you are a librarian who likes to make your own flannel stories and if you have never used this stuff, then get thee to a farm and fleet and buy a box (my colleague who gave me a few to experiment with said they were about $12 for 100.  i used 1.5 for this set.).  they are stiff, sort of fabric-y, paper-y, semi-transparent material that has enough roughness to stick easily to flannelboards and pick up colored pencil like magic.  look at how bright those colors turned out!  i had to sharpen my colored pencils 2-3 times per image!  but i am so very happy with the way they turned out.  even the poor happy fox that i had to take some artistic liberties with because the picture only shows him from the neck up.  and he sort of has rabbity feet.  but he sure looks happy!