The Story of Student Artist, Molly, and Her Amazing Paper Dolls and Debut of Her Buncee Stickers, Molly Dolls!

This is a story, I can't wait to share. 

It is a story of what our young people can do when they have a passion for something and what can happen when the people around them listen and help them cultivate and grow their passions to amplify their talents, voice, and to make their mark on the world. 

One of our 5th graders at Van Meter has been working on a very exciting project.  Her name is Molly and she is the amazing artist behind, Molly Dolls! 

It's very likely you will see....

...one of Molly's amazing paper dolls....

 ...pinned up in a classroom, in the library or in the hands of her friends and teachers at Van Meter School.

Every Molly Doll is unique...

... and special in their very own way.  

We love finding Molly creating them at school.

In the last few weeks, she has been drawing the header for the upcoming Van Meter News from our 5th graders. 

During Hour of Code in December, she even drew them using Scratch. 

They have also been hitting the road with me!  

On the back of each, Molly writes the name of the doll, where they are made, the uniqueness, and even puts a QR code and url that goes to the...

...Molly Dolls Facebook Page that she created with her mom, Rebecca. 

This is such a wonderful place for Molly to keep track of her paper dolls as they travel the world.  Me and my Molly Doll have been to Washington DC with the Future Ready team this last week and....

...could even see the Washington Monument from the window. 

We traveled to Belgium and London earlier in the year where we visited Brussels, the Tower of London, the London Bridge and....

 ...several of our library and education friends including Tynker, Flipgrid, Microsoft, MinecraftEDU and others at the BETT Conference.

Milena Piasecka, the Shapes 3D product manager, who we also met at BETT, just shared her Molly Doll in front of theses beautiful buildings in Poland today on Twitter. I couldn't wait to show Molly this!

And let's not forget how much the librarians and educators who I meet at the conferences and schools around the world love the Molly Dolls I have been giving away during my presentations and workshops.

Everyone feels so happy when they receive and hear about Molly Dolls.

When I told my dear friends at Buncee about them, and showed them the paper doll created for me to take with me when I traveled, Buncee made it into a few stickers....

....along with a few more of hers from the photo I posted.  

As my friends at Buncee and I were talking about how special her art work is, it made us think that the paper dolls Molly creates need to be stickers within Buncee of her art work! 

In fact, Molly is excited to announce that on Wednesday she kicked off a very special project with Buncee called... 

...Molly Dolls!  

There is now a Molly Dolls category of Stickers within Buncee.  

In this category are original Molly Dolls that Molly herself drew, colored and scanned to...

...Joel, Buncee's lead designer, to create into stickers for everyone to use. 

I had so much fun making this Buncee with one of the backgrounds our 2nd graders created and eight of the Molly Dolls stickers. 

I even added a few animations and embedded into this post too. 

On Friday, Molly's teachers Megan Algreen posted this after showing Molly her stickers in Buncee for the first time.  

I love her excitement and the reaction of her friends.  It is just the best. 

We can't wait to see what paper dolls she creates for Molly Dolls next! 

Don't forget that you and your students can create with Molly Dolls too. The sky is the limit when creating with Molly Dolls! 

The work we are doing with Molly and the 2nd graders at Van Meter, made us want to empower even more students to be artists within Buncee, so on Friday we kicked off the...

...Buncee Student Artist Contest, which myself and a few others, including Molly, will be judging and announcing each month.  

You can find all of the details for the Buncee Student Artist contest here and I can't wait to tell you all about it in post four of this series.

This is a story, I couldn't wait to share.  

It is a story of what our young people can do when they have a passion for something and what can happen when the people around them listen and help them cultivate and grow their passions to amplify their talents, voice, and to make their mark on the world. 

This week, let's listen to all of our students.  Let's help them cultivate and foster their talents, passions, knowledge and most of all, their voice.  

We can make a difference!