VBS Preparation– How's it Going?
Hey there, VBS friends!
I want to hear what you’re working on for 2012 VBS! Maybe some of you are still looking for ideas, and could gain some inspiration from hearing what others are doing. Whether you’re preparing for Amazing Wonders Aviation or Space Quest, maybe you had a great idea for decorating…please share! We’re all friends here, and sharing your ideas may just inspire someone else!
What are you working on right now?
What has been the biggest challenge in preparing for VBS?
What is your favorite decoration for VBS 2012?
How can we help you?
Don’t be shy! Share some ideas!
I’m working in our Musical VBS Rally! Partnering with a local restaurant we will have a big community event 4 weeks before our VBS week. Every year we had a lot of people that not attend to any church! This is an awesome outreach event for IB Doral- our church in Miami Florida.
Biggest challenge! We do not have am own building, we rent a school facility for church. One week es very expensive, so we decide every year to use another church facility…and works!
Favorite Decoration is the BIG SCENES!
Looking for a church than can donate the Gigant Inflatable Globe and Soaring Stand-Up!
Also LOOKING FOR A ENGLISH VBS TRAINING NEAR TO MIAMI!!!!
I’m planning decorations for the Great Barrier Reef! Here are my notes so far:
Cardboard Walls covering the real walls.
‘Water’ from thin blue plastic tablecloth with marker coloring, covering the cardboard walls. Cover tablecloths with plastic wrap, not perfectly smooth, making it look really wet.
Fish from printed cloth material. Reinforce the color on the back of the fish with colored pencils, and laminate. Cut out and hotglue some flat to the blue ‘water’ before the plastic wrap. Cut out, and hotglue some with spacers to the plastic wrap ‘wet’. Hang others from the ceiling with (what else?) fishing line. Mount some on foam blocks & hot glue to coral and seaweed for 3D effect. Don’t forget schools of little fish.
Jellyfish from ribbon hotglued to clear half of prize bubbles. Ribbon is white iridescent, from a pack of ‘gift shred’, and white ‘Hollywood raffia’, mixed, both from Hobby Lobby. Maybe some white bath sponge material in/on the bubble part.
Sea Turtle? Haven’t figured that one out yet.
Seaweed from floral material at Walmart, Hobby Lobby, Garden Ridge.
Sea Sponge from bath sponges.
Coral from Styrofoam, cardboard or foamy. Build up layers for 3d effect. Paint in bright colors.
Cut Styrofoam with hot wire or hot knife. Using spray paint on bare Styrofoam will eat holes in it for realistic shape.
Small pieces of wax paper rolled up in a tube & glued on a base.
Connect insulation noodles and paper towel roll tubes to each other and paint.
Bubbles from clear glass ornaments hanging from the ceiling.
Sand from rumpled cloth – old sheets, bleached & dyed tan, maybe some sand glued on.
Seashells, real, on the sand.
Giant Clam Shell from Styrofoam cut with hot knife and shaped with hair dryer.
Treasure Chests to hold craft material. (borrowing from team members coffee table)
Fishhook hanging down with a message posted on it. Bible verse or daily theme.
Fishnet on the sand.
I am trying to find pictures to make a flashcard lesson for each nights lesson..there were NO pictures for the lessons in my packet…
We are going to build an airplane from ply wood and use some paper we got free from our local paper mill plant we will paint our hanger scene on this. Another thing we are doing is we went to http://www.faceinahole.com and took pics of the vbs staff and put their faces in the plane and will put their name below their picture so the children and families will see a face of who will be their teachers for the week. I also found some sky blue wall paper at Good Will and and going to use poly fill to make my clouds and found some foam planes at Hobby Lobby and will but the date and time on this to put in our Educational building for the children to get excited about VBS. I was also able to secure army plane pictures from my cousin who is serves in the Army. So I am going to glue them to the wall paper also.
WELL I JUST DELIVERED THE PICTURES OF THE VBS CLINIC TO ALL THE CHURCHES THAT ATTENDED OUR VBS CLINIC ON THE 21ST, DECORATIONS ARE ALL READY ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS PUT THEM UP A COUPLE OF WEEKS BEFORE VBS, JULY 22. I HAVE TO PLAN THE KICKOFF DAY WHICH IS THE 21ST OF JULY WE NORMALLY HAVE A BIG WATER SLIDE & SOME GAMES. IT IS PRETTY HARD TO BEAT THE BIG WATER SLIDE, KIDS & ADULTS LOVE THIS. I HAD A POSTER MADE OF THE PEOPLE FROM MY CHURCH WHO ATTENDED THE VBS CLINIC & AM GOING TO USE IT TO ADVERTISE THE DATES & TIMES OF OUR VBS IN OUR CHURCH. WE SET UP AND DID THE PICTURES LIKE THEY DID AT THE PREVIEW EVENTS MY SON IN LAW MADE THE PLANE & THEY TURNED OUT GREAT, EVERYONE LOVED THEM. I AM LOVING THE AWA THEME THIS YEAR AT FIRST I THOUGHT THAT IT WOULD BE HARD TO COME UP WITH GOOD IDEAS, BUT THE LORD ALWAYS PROVIDES THOSE FOR ME.
Hi! My co-director and I “hung the world” and the airplane in the front of our church – we had help from one of our teachers and a friend (both guys – since we couldn’t move the ladder and we are afraid of heights – ha!). We are starting the countdown this Sunday in the worship service. Also, my husband is building the plane – he had put it together with styrofoam, plywood, and an old bbq rotisserrie motor. Next week we will start building the hanger! Can’t wait! We are super excited for everybody! Many prayers!
At the moment I’m trying to figure out how to advertise and find enough helpers for my teachers.
My biggest challenge has been that I expected to be co-directing with a friend, but she’s done almost nothing so I’m on my own more than I anticipated..
Favorite decoration…I really haven’t thought much about decorations yet actually.
I would love help with advertising and getting to word out, I’ve never had to do that before since this is my first year as director.
Melody, facebook is a good tool to use you can create your own page and invite all of your friends to join and encourage them to invite their friends. I also use our community board with our local cable company and put our VBS date and time there and put it in the local newspapers. Your Associational Newsletter is a good place also.
Melody, to add to what Sheila said, we use yard signs. They get the word out to all the neighbors of everyone who posts a sign in their yard.
Melody– does your church have any talented high school or college students who could help with your advertising/posters, etc? They might also be able to help round up some volunteers. We think it’s GREAT when youth and college students help with VBS!
I found the cutest jet pack for use with the Club VBS theme. These are sooo spacey and pretty much the only thing I need to buy is silver spray paint!
https://www.doodlecraft.blogspot.com/2012/04/super-sci-fi-rocket-fueled-jet-pack.html
I have also started pinning ideas for VBS. Would love to see ur pins!
https://pinterest.com/buggal1989/vacation-bible-school-ideas/
buggalcrafts, I’m going to share your idea on the VBS Facebook page! Lots of friends have been looking for great ideas for SpaceQuest! Thanks for sharing!
That sounds great! I haven’t seen a lot of stuff et for Space Quest ye! Hopefully that will change soon. Is the Idea Bank up for this theme yet? I couldn’t find it. Thanks.
buggalcrafts, we don’t have a separate forum for SpaceQuest. We’re hoping people start to post their ideas soon, too! We’ll continue to ask for them.
Thank you. This is the first time I recall using the “smaller” (?) VBS theme. I would love to see a separate place – a forum & idea bank OR a Facebook page. It is nice see how the other theme is coming along, but I think there would be a lot more discussion if there was a separate discussion place for the “other” theme.
A separate Facebook page would be my preference. After all the forum & idea bank are harder to access than FB (for some reason they are HARD to find and then you have to sign in and so on!). Plus you have to know where to look in them and then look in a bunch of different “files”!!! And EVERYONE is on Facebook!
But the forum & bank are great in that 2 or 3 years from now it will be easier for churches using that theme to find the information. And I love the “swap shop”.
So both have distinct advantages! Both are “better” for the teacher/director because ANYONE can post.
I like the blog too. It is very nice. I love how it’s working out this year and a good job is being done on re-posting comments from LifeWay’s Facebook page.
This is just something to think about in the future.
And we definitely appreciate your feedback! This is something that I’ll definitely discuss with our team for the future. Thanks for everything YOU do to contribute!
Has anyone actually used the Craft ideas in VBX?What type pens did you use, and where did you get them? Where do you find inexpensive white beach towels?
I am having a terible time finding the 2″ thick 4’x8′ pieces of white styrofoam boards that the decorating book recommends using. I would love some ideas as to where to find them.