Hosting a tree of life party is a unique and meaningful way to bring people together. Whether you aim to celebrate the growth of a family, honor the
Oh my, it is nearly two years later and I am FINALLY posting pictures! I have seriously got to get a handle on that! We have SO much fun putting together our Epic vacation bible school every year and I wanted to share with you what we have been up to! With it nearing VBS season again I thought I would take a trip down memory lane and share with you some great ideas that you can use for your own VBS! This year (2014) the theme was Wilderness Survival. The vision was to decorate the church with both desert and jungle themes! This was my first time in the role of "lead decor" and I had NO idea what I was doing (picture having to keep this all in fire code, yikes!) but luckily it all came together in the end! I will try to explain my technique for making things as I go... Here we covered the wall in kraft paper (Lowes or Home Depot in the painting section). Using tan wall paint and a large rectangle sponge, we "stamped" the wall to create bricks then went back and outlined sections in dark brown to make them stand out. It goes really fast if you stick to groupings of stone instead of every single one. The "sand" is just tan fabric by the yard from Joann's. I believe we ordered a few bolts online. The camel prop was ordered from the VBS catalog (we have since created out own VBS curriculum). The rocks are painted pieces of styrofoam. Keep going to see how we did the palm trees and vines. This large hallway I wanted to look like a cave! We used brown paper bags (amazingly cheap on dollartree.com) and crinkled them up and stapled them to the wall. WARNING: this took forever so I would suggest you stretch them as your staple to cover way more wall with less bag. And MUCH less staples! The effect in here was amazing! Here are our palm trees! We used pool noodles to create these. Cut a hole in a box a tad smaller than the noodle (so it stands up), cut the bottom off brown paper bags, and string them onto the noodle! I put a large paper plate on top to tape the leaves to. The leaves are just traces and cut from a roll of non-fade green paper. Drape the base in burlap or tan fabric to look like sand. That last picture is of our class photo area! The vines were my favorite craft! We used plastic table cloths from the Dollar Tree in a couple of different shades of green. These were really easy and each table cloth yeilds a ton of vines. Fold your tablecloth the long way a few times will it is about 5" wide. Trim the sides so you end up with long strips. Cut diagonal lines to the middle. TIP: make sure you stagger them so you dont ever cut all the way through! And even if you do you can always use short vines too! We used these EVERYWHERE! They were great fillers and really tied the theme together! As you will see in the second picture, we also used nets and hula skirts (dollartree.com) everywhere! The monkeys were also ordered online and below I will tell you how we made the rope vines... These rope vines were made using cut, twisted and staples brown paper bags. If I did this again, I would use skinny strips of rolled kraft paper instead. If would have gotten done much faster! We stapled leaves (again cut out of the non-fade paper) when we were done. These also went everywhere and were great for covering large expanses like the ceiling in the cafe. We also wrapped them around the check in area. Also on the ceiling you will see colorful paper lanterns. These are from Oriental Trading Company. This giant tree was my biggest project! The frame is made from PVC. It ended up being 12 feet tall! We used the rolls of brown kraft paper here as well. It is simple... roll it out, wrinkle it up, stretch it out, and tape it on top to bottom! The last picture shows you what it looked like from the inside. The branches were made the same way but left wrinkled and twisted. I wanted to add more but we ran out of time! This hallway is always the kids favorite. The black light hallway! Luckily one wall was already dark, the other we wrapped with a roll of black non-fade paper. The volunteers had fun make fish, octopus, turtles and other sea creatures using white paper and fluorescent paint! These were then stapled onto the wall. The floor was covered in clear balloons that we squirted with the florescent paint on the inside. The jellyfish are paper lanterns lightly painted with fluorescent paint, with streamers and white string hanging from them. The ceiling also had streamers and nets. The openeing to this hallways was made to look like a waterfall. We used clear celo wrap, paper bags (done in the same way as the cave hallway) and the flowers were made using more non-fade paper. And because the nursery kids are important too... we gave them a little decor!
Embrace your child's artistic side and learn about crocheting, knitting, painting, photography, scrapbooking, and more from the editors of Parents magazine.
Moving on to my board of things kid related, here are 13 Kid Projects that I want to help my kiddos accomplish in 2013...This headband holder from FunnyGirlDesigns - I think my girls could attempt to
9 Lovely Trees of Friendship Ready and Waiting Positioning collaged birds Sketching out their Klimt style trees with p...
If you need to make a tree trunk to use as a prop or decoration, you can make your own at home using brown packing paper. Brown packing paper is an ideal material for constructing tree trunks for a stage design, or props for a haunted house.
How to Make a Mason Bee Habitat, Perfect Life Cycle of a Bee Activities, DIY Bee Habitat, Bee Theme, Hands-on activities for Kids, DIY Bee Homes, Honey Bee life cycle, Mason Bee Life Cycle, Five in a row activities, FIAR Homeschooling, and a perfect Bee unit Study
I finally finished my palm tree and OMG is it adorable! I love it and everything about it! Thanks to the help of my Mom and a cloudy Sunday ...
Are you looking for some dinosaur crafts for your kids? Learn more about the art and craft projects described in detail in this extensive article.
Looking to make a statement? These tree centerpiece ideas are sure to add life to your reception décor.
Get creative and plan the most amazing party with these ideas for enchanted forest theme party.
Inspiring the creativity in you.
Carnaval 2015
Looking to make a statement? These tree centerpiece ideas are sure to add life to your reception décor.
Inspiring the creativity in you.
Are you planning a party and looking for a theme that will leave your guests inspired and excited? Look no further. With an abundance of options to choose
Make a cardboard dinosaur craft for your dino loving kids with this super simple cut and slot method of construction! Great for older kids to do alone or to make for little ones to decorate and play with on a rainy day. Cardboard truly is the BEST art material available as far as I am...Read More »
Ryan and I love creating and crafting together, and it all started when we were engaged and doing a lot of DIY projects for our wedding. 5 years later, I’m so glad that we are still crafting and…
Brown colored butcher paper is an ideal material for many crafts, but most of all for making a life-size tree. Life-size trees can be used for a variety of educational and social projects, from decorating a classroom bulletin board, to providing a visual aid for teaching plant science, or as a party decoration.
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What’s black and white and read all over? Book-inspired home decor, of course! All jokes aside, we’re total bookworms here at Brit HQ and we love seeing projects and products that bring the bookish aesthetic out of the library and into the home. While we don’t support destroying perfectly good books in the name of DIY, we do think that old and outdated books (think old encyclopedias and dictionaries) deserve opportunities to find new life as beautiful decor. These 35 products-to-buy and projects-to-DIY will have you dying to crack open a book in your newly decorated space.
When I was planning Lincoln's Octonauts birthday party, I knew I wanted some sort of craft for the kids to do. I went back and forth between this idea (a Sea Anemone Pipe Cleaner craft) and a Paper Plate Aquarium, but the anemone ultimately required less prep, so it was the one we chose! My kids love sea creatures, so I thought it would be really fun to make an anemone - I knew they would use it after the party to play with their ocean themed toys! Sea Anemone Pipe Cleaner Craft Supplies Needed: -Pipe Cleaners in whatever colors you choose (about 50-60 per anemone) -Small, Round Plastic Canvas (I used 3") -Scissors 1. Cut all the pipe cleaners in half. You could leave them full length, or you could cut them in various lengths...for the sake of time, I cut mine all the same. 2. Insert each end of one piece of pipe cleaner through one side of the plastic canvas, pull tight, and twist to hold in place. See photos below for further visuals. I 3. Continue in this manner, filling the spaces closely. I found that the overall look of the anemone was fuller and more realistic when I used almost every hole in the canvas versus skipping over them to use fewer pipe cleaners. Below: an example of what the bottom of a canvas looks like when a four-year-old actually makes the craft. It still turns out really cute - just not as full! 4. Continue to fill in the spaces until all have been covered. 5. Arrange as desired and enjoy! Our anemones were a big hit. My kids think they're cool, and they loved the sensory-friendly craft project. Bonus piece of info which can double as a warning: anemones sting and it turns out that pipe cleaners have a stinging effect when exposed as they are in this craft. The kids and I actually think it's more realistic and cool, but some people may not agree with us! I'm dreaming up more unusual sea creature crafts...what should we make next?!
I get the opportunity to teach you how to make a fake palm tree. I was asked to decorate for our Vacation Bible School, which was to be set in Athens. Therefore, part of the set design was to be palm trees. Luckily, our MOPS group had already made some palm trees for their Hawaiian...Read More
I’m always thinking of new ways to create hands-on learning activities for my kids. My favorite activities are ones that take less than 10 minutes to prepare and use things that I already have on hand (or can be found in a simple trip to the craft store...yea for excuses to buy craft supplies....lol!) This DIY Flower Graph is so easy to put together with one package of foam stickers and gives lots of great opportunities to learn.
Hello friends! Take a look at what my class has been up to in the last few weeks. Field Trips, Field Trips, Field Trips ... A...
