A limit to my creativiti

At work in May I set as a craft, fan-making for June 11. Then I let it go, secure that the internet would teach me how to teach my residents how to make one.

And there were some good ideas but they required too much specific craft stuff or were too childish (Note: my 'resident's are residents of a Long Term Care Home, largely older than I am). I took some ideas and put them together into a pretty good practical creation, I think.

I had planned to use tongue depressors but it turned out at work we only had popsicle sticks, far too small to be useful. I did find a set of painter's plaques, maybe 14 cm by 24 cm, I guess. Wait, in cutting them to useful sizes, I know the short side was 16 cm. Anyway, I measured out 1.5 cm sections and cut them in a guillotine. This worked well. Then I took them plus some nuts and bolts I had bought to the maintenance room. 

There I amazed myself. I have used tools before but this time I picked up all the tools I needed, organized them and used them exactly as planned! Usually, I am trying to make a slot screwdriver work in a philips head. I drilled the plaques four at a time, then threaded the bolt through. I tightened the nut as far as I could then cut the excess with a hacksaw. Then, I smashed the cut end with a hammer, spreading the cut threads and making sure the nut could not come off. Genius, I say!

I found paper of close to the right size and meet my residents so we could make fans. Here is one.

You can see how the paper overlaps which is not ideal, but you can also see the fingers or plaque pieces of the fan.

So far, pretty good stuff. I planned ahead and thought about how things would fit together and I am mostly proud.

But then a resident asked how to add a string so she could hang the fan on her wall. I had given no thought to display at all. I hadn't thought about the fans as art. This was not tragic but it is pretty good example of my relative skill at figuring out the small picture but not the larger picture.