Creator Spotlight

Dogs find new forever homes with help of library green screen

The volunteers of local nonprofit, no-kill animal shelter The Buddy Foundation took advantage of the library’s collection after discovering the library has a collapsible green screen available for checkout, and used it to not only spread some holiday cheer, but helped several of their dogs get adopted into loving homes.

“We’re always posting pictures of our dogs and our cats at the shelter on social media,” said volunteer Eriq Jaffe, who works with social media coordinator Stephanie Snow Familar and volunteer Nicole Pasterski. “The whole point of posting these [pictures] on social media is to get the animals noticed.” “I thought it might be kind of fun to do something with the green screen where we can then take those pictures and put a dog in Santa’s workshop or in front of a fireplace, which might get some more eyes on these dogs and get them adopted,” Jaffe said. “When Eriq said that he could get a green screen, I was like, ‘that’s cool, isn’t that what they use in the movies,’” Familar said. “I didn’t have any idea that he was going to get it at the library; I found that out the day that he got it...I was so surprised in such a good way that [the library has] these really cool tools for people to use.” “The hard part [was] getting the dogs to hold still,” Jaffe said. “But really, setting up the green screen was a snap.” The photos and videos were shared on The Buddy Foundation’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and received the shelter’s largest engagement on social media to date.

“The end goal is always getting the dogs adopted,” Familar said. “Two of the dogs that we featured got adopted and that’s an amazing feeling for me, Nikki and Eriq, and it was a lot of fun for the dogs too.”

Took a class. Made some gifts.

Everyone loves a personalized gift! That’s what Arlington Heights resident Elaine Schreck decided as she set out to make some gifts this past December, a tray for her brother and his fiancée with a customized vinyl design of their wedding date and buttons and magnets for family members featuring photos of her newborn, Eddie.

“All of these gifts were a big hit,” said Schreck. “To make the tray, I repurposed and stained a piece of wood and the handles were antiques from some old kitchen cabinets. The only cost was for the vinyl cutout–it cost me a dollar to make at the Makerplace!” Schreck’s money-saving, gift-making adventure first began when she enrolled in a Makerplace Essentials Class: Vinyl Cutting. “The class was really good to learn how to use the Cricut software and the rest of the instruments,” said Schreck. “Before the class, I was having a hard time conceptualizing how I was going to get this project from an idea in my head to a finished product. But once you see the software and how it works, it starts to make sense and the staff was so helpful in answering questions.” For the buttons and magnets, Schreck used the Makerplace’s button maker and its paper cutter to turn 4x6 inch photos into one-of-a-kind rounded designs featuring the many faces of Baby Eddie. “I was so excited–especially with the buttons,” said Schreck. “It was so much fun to make them, and they turned out better than I expected. Everyone loved them.”

The next time you create something at the library using the Studio,

Makerplace or an item from the Library of Things collection, share it with us at ahml.info/creator_spotlight. We want to shine the spotlight on what you created, and show others too.