We are READY! 2 crafts per day - $1.43 per day per child

[birdgirl14]

Who knew so little could go so far.

We have finished our budget and planning, I thought I would share our ideas.
(If you want details on anything I would be happy to share)

A couple of things:
We are trying to stay true to the theme of the day with the craft.
We have a main craft and filler craft every day.
We are doing the same crafts 3 years old-4th grade. The only difference is how much prep we are doing and how much help we are giving.
We are only a four day camp so we are combining days three and five.

1) God Listens
main craft - 2 foot long shipping tube rain stick decorated with textured animal paper, feathers and beads
filler craft - hand animals (we are using these as decorations for the entry hall way for the week, double duty)

2) God Provides
main craft - laminated place mat, textured animal paper and the Lord's Prayer
filler craft - bean seed to plant (this is cool!!! write the words God Provides with a Sharpie on the bean seed and when it grows the bean seed will come out of the dirt on the bean stalk and you will be able to read the words God Provides on the halves of the bean seed as the plant grows. Cool Miracle)

3) God Forgives (combined with day 5)
main craft - prayer journal - card stock cover with a jungle sticker collection on the front and preprinted pages to put inside. Tie it up with ribbon or yarn.

4) God Protects
main craft - African shield made out of a big chinet plate decorated with rafia hair and paint and beads, dowel rod spear to go with the shield
filler craft - animal print foam bracelets, velcro dots to close them, the kids can write on them in sharpie the verse or God Protects or whatever

5) God Rules (combined with day 5)
main craft - Crowns - this is just a kit from Oreintal Trading, but it isn't expensive and it's cool
filler craft - Oriental Trading sand art kit they are jungle scenes on sticky board and you peel of the parts and cover with sand. Even the little kids can do it

PLUS - we are making tattoos for every day. Which we are applying while the kids are in the craft room. I found a place that sells tattoo paper that you can put through the printer to make your own tattoos. We will probably use the cartooon characters for our younger children but maybe something a little hipper for 2-4 grades

[TrinityJen]

Please post the link for the tattoo paper. I would love to try this out!

Great Ides for crafts. I want to try the bean seed one myself.

[bray]

We also do our VBS for 4 days. Do you do 2 hours or 3? I was going to combine days 1 and 2. How did you decide what days to combine. How are you going to do the teaching time?

[birdgirl14]

http://www.beldecal.com/tattoo_paper.cfm

[birdgirl14]

We only do four days, 3 hrs per day. We combined days 3 and 5. Frankly the reason is embarrassing. I was the first one to speak up and suggest we combine 3 and 5 and no one had any opinion to do anything different so that's what we did. The reason I cared was because I couldn't come up with a craft for God Forgives that I really liked. Not a great reason but whatever...

[birdgirl14]

http://www.4imprint.com/9856

This is where the bean idea came from. We had already thought about doing a plant on the God Provides day and then I saw this. I got the catalogue the day we were finalizing our projects.

[Kitty in Indy]

We are doing all 5 days and do 2 1/2 hours per night. We are doing crafts that are African, but tied into the bible point for the day.

1) God Listens
We are doing prayer journals with a hard cardboard front and back and the sheets inside, all 3-hole punched and tied with colored raffia. They will cover at least the front (and possibly the back) with material that looks like fake suede. The children will then have sponges cut into various shapes (rectangles, triangles, etc.) to sponge paint with to create a "tribal" looking pattern on the front of their prayer journals.

2) God Provides
The kids will be painting one of the jointed wooden fish.....I'm trying to come up with something else as well that ties into a basket or loaf of bread.

3) God Forgives
I struggled with this one too, but finally came up with a mark and wipe board project (you know - God forgives and wipes our sins away). We will put a sheet of white paper onto a piece of cardboard. I think I will print the little bible point logo in the top corner and maybe the memory verse along the bottom. Then you cover that with strips of clear duct tape. That creates your mark & wipe board. Then on a larger piece of cardboard they will decoupage on a sheet of animal print tissue paper, attach the mark & wipe board in the middle of the larger board which will make a frame of sorts. Then we'll either add a string to hang the board or put something on the back so they can hang it up.

4) God Protects
We are also making shields, but I think they are going to get a great big piece of cardboard cut into the shape to decorate. Again we will cut sponges into various shapes for painting a tribal design. We'll also poke 2 or 3 holes on each side and tie colored raffia on the shield to hang down on either side. If I get real ambitious we will cover the shields ahead of time for the kids with crinkled up brown paper bags and lightly coat them with decoupage so that it looks like tanned leather. They will then paint and decorate on that.

5) God Rules
Our craft time is shortened on day 5 because we expand music so we can run through the program with everyone on stage at the same time. Therefore the kids will be making either a necklace or keychain with a wooden cross, black cord and a large variety of African looking beads to pick from.

Please continue to share ideas!!!

-Kitty

[Libby]

http://www.4imprint.com/9856

This is where the bean idea came from. We had already thought about doing a plant on the God Provides day and then I saw this. I got the catalogue the day we were finalizing our projects.

this looks so cool! have you tried it yet?

[Cutefinn]

Who knew so little could go so far.

We have finished our budget and planning, I thought I would share our ideas.
(If you want details on anything I would be happy to share)

A couple of things:
We are trying to stay true to the theme of the day with the craft.
We have a main craft and filler craft every day.
We are doing the same crafts 3 years old-4th grade. The only difference is how much prep we are doing and how much help we are giving.
We are only a four day camp so we are combining days three and five.

1) God Listens
main craft - 2 foot long shipping tube rain stick decorated with textured animal paper, feathers and beads
filler craft - hand animals (we are using these as decorations for the entry hall way for the week, double duty)

2) God Provides
main craft - laminated place mat, textured animal paper and the Lord's Prayer
filler craft - bean seed to plant (this is cool!!! write the words God Provides with a Sharpie on the bean seed and when it grows the bean seed will come out of the dirt on the bean stalk and you will be able to read the words God Provides on the halves of the bean seed as the plant grows. Cool Miracle)

3) God Forgives (combined with day 5)
main craft - prayer journal - card stock cover with a jungle sticker collection on the front and preprinted pages to put inside. Tie it up with ribbon or yarn.

4) God Protects
main craft - African shield made out of a big chinet plate decorated with rafia hair and paint and beads, dowel rod spear to go with the shield
filler craft - animal print foam bracelets, velcro dots to close them, the kids can write on them in sharpie the verse or God Protects or whatever

5) God Rules (combined with day 5)
main craft - Crowns - this is just a kit from Oreintal Trading, but it isn't expensive and it's cool
filler craft - Oriental Trading sand art kit they are jungle scenes on sticky board and you peel of the parts and cover with sand. Even the little kids can do it

PLUS - we are making tattoos for every day. Which we are applying while the kids are in the craft room. I found a place that sells tattoo paper that you can put through the printer to make your own tattoos. We will probably use the cartooon characters for our younger children but maybe something a little hipper for 2-4 grades

Where did you get your beans and what type did you get? I went to the site, and boy are they expensive! But it's such a GREAT idea I want to do it too. Thanks for sharing!

[birdgirl14]

The beans we got from Gurney's they are online at www.gurneys.com

We are using Thorogreen Lime Beans but I understand that Fordhooks are bigger. If I get inspired I am going to exchange ours.

I have done a couple of experiments. The best way (alos the hardest) is to soak the beans the a night or two before you plant them, take off the out sheath and write on the bean.

If you don't do this and write on the sheath it works but the sheath falls off after a day or two. I guess that is why the laser engrave them. It probably writes on both the inner bean and the sheath.

If you do take off the outer sheath the bean shrivels a little.

Not perfect laser engraving solution but $10 for the beans and $2 for a Sharpie sure beat $5 per bean.

[Cutefinn]

The beans we got from Gurney's they are online at www.gurneys.com

We are using Thorogreen Lime Beans but I understand that Fordhooks are bigger. If I get inspired I am going to exchange ours.

I have done a couple of experiments. The best way (alos the hardest) is to soak the beans the a night or two before you plant them, take off the out sheath and write on the bean.

If you don't do this and write on the sheath it works but the sheath falls off after a day or two. I guess that is why the laser engrave them. It probably writes on both the inner bean and the sheath.

If you do take off the outer sheath the bean shrivels a little.

Not perfect laser engraving solution but $10 for the beans and $2 for a Sharpie sure beat $5 per bean.

Thanks for the information. I think I'll check out the web site and go for that. I agree $5 per bean is a bit out of our price range.

[bibleschoolrookie]

I am new to being in charge of crafts at Bible School, and I was wondering where you got your shipping tubes from to make the rainsticks, which I think are a great idea, and how are you going to laminate your placemats? Also, are the crowns you are using the yellow foam ones from oriental trading or different ones?

[birdgirl14]

The rain sticks came from ULINE, they are on the web and are local to us. (TIP:If you ask for the next qty discount up, you will usually get it. ie our tubes were 48 cents but if you bought 1000 they were only 42 cents. I asked for a discount and they gave me the 42 cent price. They did this for every item on our order, but you do have to ask)

Our church has a preschool and the preschool has a heat laminating machine. Rolls of laminate are $20 each. Two rolls are going to be enough to do all our placemats, 11x17. If your church doesn't have a machine, try your local school. We are donating the leftover laminate when we are done to the school in appreciation for letting us use the machine. They also have sticky laminate, two clear sticky sheets that you put the place mat in the middle of and peel and stick. Its a little pricey and not easy to work with. Not my recommendation.

The yellow crowns are the oriental trading ones. We bought peel and stick jewels from OT as well and are going to use the peel and stick jewels instead of the ones that come with the crowns, because we are doing crowns the last day for "GOD RULES" and we didn't want jewels falling off because the glue wasn't dry. (And any time we don't have to use glue, the clean up is easier) We also make a round sticker for the front of the crown that says "GOD RULES" a round silver sticker, from office depot.

[Cutefinn]

The rain sticks came from ULINE, they are on the web and are local to us. (TIP:If you ask for the next qty discount up, you will usually get it. ie our tubes were 48 cents but if you bought 1000 they were only 42 cents. I asked for a discount and they gave me the 42 cent price. They did this for every item on our order, but you do have to ask)

Our church has a preschool and the preschool has a heat laminating machine. Rolls of laminate are $20 each. Two rolls are going to be enough to do all our placemats, 11x17. If your church doesn't have a machine, try your local school. We are donating the leftover laminate when we are done to the school in appreciation for letting us use the machine. They also have sticky laminate, two clear sticky sheets that you put the place mat in the middle of and peel and stick. Its a little pricey and not easy to work with. Not my recommendation.

The yellow crowns are the oriental trading ones. We bought peel and stick jewels from OT as well and are going to use the peel and stick jewels instead of the ones that come with the crowns, because we are doing crowns the last day for "GOD RULES" and we didn't want jewels falling off because the glue wasn't dry. (And any time we don't have to use glue, the clean up is easier) We also make a round sticker for the front of the crown that says "GOD RULES" a round silver sticker, from office depot.


I made rainsticks last year for our "Rainforest Adventure" and we made them with paper towel tubes, taped one end, put in a coil of foil and used rice, then taped up the other end. Then the kids decorated the outside with tissue paper and diluted glue. We had parish members donate the paper towel tubes and tissue paper so this craft only cost us a few rolls of foil and a couple of bags of rice! Very inexpensive.

[birdgirl14]

tell me about the "coil of foil" I have been experimenting with the inside to get the best sound. Nothing great so far....

[Cutefinn]

tell me about the "coil of foil" I have been experimenting with the inside to get the best sound. Nothing great so far....

We just took a moderate size piece of foil and scrunched it into a long "snake". Then we just made it look like a loose spring then put it into the tube. We made sure that it was long enough to reach the end of the tube.

Let me know if you still can't picture it and I'll upload a picture.