We have a plan

[birdgirl14]

We have the basics of our decorating plan, but we are looking for ways to spice it up. Any tricks or tips would be great.

Our entry way is going to be set up as a base camp. Tent, table, chairs, sleeping bags, camp fire, (a lot like the picture in the book, page 11)

One long hall way is going to be set up like a village. Each doorway is going to have a canopy (pg 12) and a sign - Crafts, Missions, Music, etc. with mini stalls in between the doorways like market stalls

Our other long (150 ft long) is going to be the plains. We are going to start in the morning, sun rising, and at the other end end it will be night time, stars, just sillouttes, etc

The hallway intersection is going to the watering hole. Like page 15, but we are going to do a big pond on the floor with lots of animals in it.

Our hallways will have hula skirt brown grass (it's only about 18"long) along the bottom, a four foot high mural and then blue paper across the top. Mountains will come out of the mural onto the sky to join the two, trees and animals will overlay as well. We are trying to get a lot of horizontal mileage out of a tight budget.

Other than the decorating book I have no great ideas. Well one, we are going to make the sign posts that have the cities each on thier own arrow with how many miles it is to that city. A pail with cement and pvc pipe and cardboard rectangle arrows for each city.

Ok now you know how uncreative I am, any ideas?

[TrinityJen]

Wow! You have some great ideas! When we did KotS we used very minimal decorations. We had kids make African signs and used sale calendar pictures to cover walls.

One cool thing we did was cut animal foot prints out of contact paper put them on the tile hallways. This past year I used paper w/ clear contact paper squares on top it worked well too. - Just remember to cut out right AND left feet. (We didn't ;) )

[Kitty in Indy]

Birdgirl,

Sounds like some great ideas! We empty our choir loft area which is behind our stage so that we have room for all of the kids during our program. We are setting up a very small scale safari camp in the corner of the stage, but are accomplishing decorating the huge area of empty walls (which we can't really tape onto) by getting empty carpet rolls free from a local flooring store and then attaching white butcher paper in 2 tiers so that we will have 8 foot tall coverage across the sides and back of the stage. We are simply going to paint a huge yellow sun and then yellows and oranges and reds to depict a sunset. We are going to cut out cardboard silhouettes of an acacia tree and some giraffes or other animals and paint them black to place in front of the sunset backdrop. The "safari camp" small scale canopy, cot, fire, etc. will be in front of that and we will place brown dry grasses all along the bottom of the backdrop to add some depth to the scene.

Also, I'm toying with the idea of bundling together some of the carpet rolls and covering the top to make a "hut" around the organ which is off to the side of the stage. We don't use the organ during VBS so we could hide it that way. We'll have to leave the piano uncovered though.

The only other thing I have planned for sure is that I'm going to make our craft area into a "monkey jungle". It is in one of the basement areas with a very low cieling and somecenter poles. We are going to decorate with lots of brown paper twisted vines draped across the room, big green lush leaves made out of crepe paper and probably a stuffed monkey or two hanging from the vines.

Please continue to share your ideas and I'll do the same!

[TrinityJen]

The only other thing I have planned for sure is that I'm going to make our craft area into a "monkey jungle". It is in one of the basement areas with a very low ceiling and some center poles. We are going to decorate with lots of brown paper twisted vines draped across the room, big green lush leaves made out of crepe paper and probably a stuffed monkey or two hanging from the vines.


We used a "Barrel of Monkeys" Monkey on am over head to make large monkey that we chained together and hung from paper vines. Easy and cute.

Here are some of my pictures that show how we decorated and our cute camera name tags. 2005 Kingdom of the Son Album (http://s184.photobucket.com/albums/x151/TrinityJenVBS/VBS%202005%20Kingdom%20of%20the%20Son/?albumview=slideshow)

[nana]

I loved Kingdom of the Son, I think it was my favorite VBS. One thing we did to decorate a large area was to paint cardboard boxes to look like shipping crates, then stenciled "Cargo", "Medical Supplies", "Fragile", "Camera Equipment" etc on them. I can't remember what all we wrote on them, but you get the idea. Then we stacked a few here and there and put a stuffed animal on each pile. It covered a large space and was free. There was a web site, sorry I don't know the address anymore, that showed how to paint the boxes to make them look very realistic as crates. Hope this helps spark an idea for you.
Nana (Norma)

[birdgirl14]

I was looking through your pictures. I love the zebra room with just the torn black paper. COOL, easy, cheap!!!!

I like the twisted paper and leaves, I think we are going to use both of those ideas.

[birdgirl14]

Look at Trinity Jen's pictures. She has a couple with crates in them that look great. I found this site with great directions for faux painting crates. Take the site with a grain of salt. the directions are great.

http://www.ghoulfriday.com/painting_faux_wooden_boards_cardboard

[TrinityJen]

I was looking through your pictures. I love the zebra room with just the torn black paper. COOL, easy, cheap!!!!

I like the twisted paper and leaves, I think we are going to use both of those ideas.


Thanks! I know I use so many ideas that were shared on the boards then. I have no choice but to keep the ideas going. The Zebra room was SO super easy and we already had a large roll of black paper.

The vines were paper from the paint dept. It is painters paper, or something it was only 4-6 inches wide but LOTS of feet long for maybe $6. I don't know if we needed more than 1 roll. It is think and twists REALLY easy. we tried stapling paper bags together and this was MUCH simpler. Then we stapled on simple cut out leaves. We used the same idea for SonTreasure Island the next year. (of course we didn't keep anything- but the boxes)

The boxes were SUPER simple too. I don't think we even painted all the sides. We had to be careful how they were set up. Someone donated leftover paint from their house. and we made a mix of brown and black craft paint to make the cross bars. Then used a sharpie for the extra details. I might look for them to bring on our camping trip.

[Amandalee498]

These are all GREAT IDEAS!!! we are just starting decorating. Wed, June 3rd is when we decided on doing VBS this year and it will start on June 14th so I am CRAMING>>
so if you have any other ideas or suggestions on things We can make in a pinch I would love to hear them.
THANKS

[TrinityJen]

I posted about this on another thread - but buy a couple packs of green construction paper and make copies of a palm leaf pattern - I bet there is one in the book - or on-line. Then start handing out 1 pattern and a stack of paper to anyone!

We also had a few discount calendars of African animals - matted them w/ bright paper hung them in groups.

We had the kids make African flags out of construction paper and markers. Made a grouping and hung them on butcher paper - one room down.

Pickle buckets covered in paper and some fabric - drums.

We did shield w/ animal faces, but they could be much simpler too.

[birdgirl14]

Our biggest ideas turned out to be the easiest.

Sunset (8'x32' wall) 1 hour, 2 ppl
cover the whole wall with orange paper, add pink, add yellow haze, add bright yellow sun. add black hills and animals on top. It was awesome.

Night time (8'x60' wall) 1 hour, 2 ppl
cover the whole wall with black paper, add starry night paper over the top, add black hills, grass and animals on top.

Zebra Room (3 rooms 20'x20' feet) 2 ppl, 1 hr
I got this idea off this site, can't remember from who, but they had a picture as well. We tore floor to ceiling strips of black paper and taped them to the walls in a zebra stripe pattern. Looked great, very little time and effort for the bang.


Day Time (8'x100' wall) way too many hours, way to many people
we took blue paper for the sky, brown for the hills and bottom
then painted 1000 (not really) animals and scattered them every where.
I think you could get a quick effect just cutting the animals out of black paper and taping them up

Watering Hole (8'x30' wall) 2 ppl, 4hrs
covered the whole wall with blue paper and put up a couple of hippos, elephants and flamingos, hung green hula skirts across the top

Buy all your paper from www.uline.com buy it in 4 foot rolls.

Check out our pictures at

http://picasaweb.google.com/melindaburch/VBSPhotos?authkey=Gv1sRgCLOCmsz-o_DiHA#

We are done and I am recovered enough to answer any questions and give inspiration. I will share that along my entire journey, people prayed for me and God provided. He provided, helpers, materials, inspirations and dedication. Don't forget to start this project everyday on your knees. I was truly changed by His hand in my endeveor. I pray for everyone working on a VBS, I pray that they will be as touched and changed by the experience as I am.

Melinda

[TrinityJen]

Your murals are beautiful!!! Great job! I love the drums, are they fro donations? You must have a very large VBS. I can't wait to see more pictures!

[janlara]

Birdgirl, Wonderful pics, and a fantastic job you did! The murals are awesome! These are truly great inspirational pics.
One question that we are pondering: How did you attach the "canopies" to the walls? Did you use sheets?

[janlara]

Birdgirl, another question. On the wall that you wrote parts of the Lord's Prayer, did you paint the daily pictures, or use ones that came with the kit?

[birdgirl14]

We used sheets for the canopies.
We have the drop ceilings in the hallways.
They have the support edge along the wall.
We clipped the sheets to the support edge with binder clips.
We clipped them from underneath so you couldn't see the clip.
We clipped them every morning, the kids tugged on them, and they fell frequently. But were easy to repair.
Next time I would take a 1x2 piece of wood the exact distance between the floor and ceiling and wedge the wood so it was against the wall but secured between the floor and ceiling. Then I would secure the sheet to the wood with a staple gun to make it more secure and then I would use much bigger sheets.

We have a no tape on the walls rule, so we have to be creative about how to hang things.
Does that make sense?
Live and learn.

[birdgirl14]

on the entry mural with the 5-day animals, we painted those, cut them out and then stuck them to the wall and finally wrote an abbreviated version of hte Lords Prayer with a big sharpie....

[janlara]

Birdgirl, that all makes perfect sense. Our ceilings are popcorn, I am afraid, but I was thinking of using a back support for the canopies. Our local carpet center said we could have some of the inner "poles" that carpet comes on, and they will cut to whatever length we need. Bless them!!!! That's what we'll use for the front poles, and maybe could use for the back as well...hmmmmmm

I am a decorating "helper" this year, but I am wound up and ready to go, because no one has a "plan." I'm usually the leader of decorating, so I know how important it is to have a clear direction...or at least a direction. :)
I don't have a book with the images, either. grrrrrrr . All will be good, though, I'm sure.

If there are downloadable images that I could use....anyone....help!!! :)

Thank you!