Creating Your Own Great Barrier Reef

For those that have followed my blog in the past, y'all know how much I love using Great Stuff Expanding Foam. It is inexpensive, lightweight, and durable. I've used it in the past to make stalactites and termite mounds. This year I am using it to make coral for the craft room. When you use Great Stuff, be careful to keep it off your skin and other surfaces - it is very sticky.

How To

• First, cover your working area with wax paper. This will keep it off your furniture and make the foam easy to peel off once it dries. I usually take cardboard and line it with wax paper.
• Then spray the foam in the coral patterns you want. Follow the directions on the can for drying information. 
• Once it is dry, you can spray paint the foam to make it colorful and bright. I like mixing different colors to create different looks.

• After your coral has dried, carefully peel it off the wax paper. 

Now you have colorful coral to decorate your craft room!

"You, Mini-Man, takin' on the jellies. You've got serious thrill issues, dude. Awesome!"

Hemma Cord Set

The Jellyfish Lamp is probably the most intricate thing we are going to make this year (besides the airplane). I'm decorating the craft room with blue gossamer and fabric to create an underwater feel, so I wanted to make a unique light source that fits with the flow of the room. I decided upon a jellyfish because I thought it would look cool hanging from the ceiling. I used the Hemma Cord Set from Ikea as the light base. For the bulb, I chose a low temp energy saving light bulb to reduce the heat. The jellyfish shade is made out of Dura-lar. Dura-lar is a thick plastic overlay that has a pretty high heat tolerance. I chose a roll that was .007" thick. Alright, so onto the how to...

Jellyfish Lamp How To

• First, I traced a bowl to create a large circle on the Dura-lar and cut it out. I split it and rolled it into a funnel shape to make a lampshade. Then I cut the top inch off, so I could slip the lamp cord through it.

• Then I cut out petal shapes out of the Dura-lar. I made sure the petals were long enough to hang about a 1/2 inch off the clear lampshade. I used spray paint to paint the petals pink.

• Next, I superglued the petals around the lampshade. I chose superglue because it has a high heat tolerance. Every glue is different though, so check out the label on the back before you buy it. I chose Loctite Super Glue for plastics - dish washer safe. 

• After that, I cut out various shapes out of Dura-lar for its tentacles. I made some spirals, swirls, and fringes. Then I spray painted them pink as well. After they dried, I superglued them onto the clear lampshade, so they would not weigh the outer shell down. 

• After you attached all of its tentacles, you're finished! Your jellyfish is ready to swim in your Great Barrier Reef!

An Art Easel for Your Soho Craft Studio

An art easel is great element to use in your craft room this year, because it can be both decorative and functional. Unfortunately, they can be a little pricey. I decided to cut the cost and make my own.

• I started by picking up two five-foot 1" x 1" and one seven-foot 1"x 1" wooden poles at Home Depot. The price will vary depending on the type of wood you choose. I went with the cheapest. (You can also check out the scrap wood bin. As long as your poles are the same size and length, it really doesn't matter if the wood matches)

• First, cut off the extra three feet off the one 7 ft pole, so all of the long poles are 5 feet (we'll use the extra 3 feet later).
• Next, drill a hole about a half inch from the top of the pole with a 1/4" drill bit. Then repeat this for the next two poles. (I lined up the pole that I had previously drilled through with the new pole and marked where the hole was to make sure they would line up)

• After all three have a hole drilled through them, take a 4" screw and feed it through one pole. Put a bolt on the other side of the pole to anchor it. Leave about a 1/3 of inch and put another bolt at that spot, then feed another pole onto the screw. Place another bolt to anchor that one down also. Repeat this process for the third pole. This will leave you with a tripod like structure that you can manipulate to get it to stand up the way it to. 

• Next, take your 3' pole and attach it to the front legs (your poles on the right and left). I used two small wood screws to do this, but you could also drive small nails and it would hold the same.

• Once that is done, you have yourself and easel. I left mine with its natural wood finish and splattered some paint on it, but you can paint and decorate it to fit your room.

Enjoy!

The ABC's

After getting back in town, I've slowly started finishing up the last of the decorations, all of which I hope to have up by the end of next week (The World Cup has caused some distractions). In the meantime, I've created some ABC signs for the Missions, Crafts, Music, and Bible Study rooms. I like to have the ABC's of becoming a Christian up in all the classrooms, so each year I make some posters that fit the theme of each room. They can be downloaded below:

ABC Signs

ABC's for Bible Study Bunkhouse

ABC's for Crafts at The Blazing Star Stables

ABC's for Missions at Firefly Caverns

ABC's for Music at Campfire Creek

Please let me know if you notice any mistakes on the signs. They were created under a lack of sleep and the constant buzz of the vuvuzela horns coming from the soccer games; perfect conditions for typos! :)

The Three R's of VBS

Each year I do my best to use the three R's of VBS: Reuse, Recover, and Refurbish. The three R's help me each year to save time and, more importantly, money. Over the weekend, I went through the storage and found a few things that could be used again this year.

Cokesbury's Circle G Arch

Back in 2005, I used Cokesbury's Circle G VBS. Our church still had the arch that was sold as decoration. I removed the Circle G logo and cut out out a new logo out of cardboard. I then dry brushed it and painted the Saddle Ridge Ranch logo.

Snow Owl

I used the owl when we did Arctic Edge. I bought a basic decoy hunting owl. I bought mine at Dick's Sporting Goods for around $5 (I got a discount because he only had one eye). These are great for decorating. They can be placed about anywhere to create some faux wildlife in a room. I repainted this one to turn him into a snow owl to fit the theme of Arctic Edge. I used acrylic paint to turn him white and fake snow paint around the base. For this year's theme, this isn't really necessary. You can use him just as he is if you do not want to paint.

Tumbleweeds

I made these for last year's VBS. They are very simple to make. I bought a grapevine wreath at Hobby Lobby. I clipped the vine that held the wreath together and then unraveled the entire wreath. Since it was already in a circle, all I had to do was take the vine and twist it in different directions to create a sphere. You can take floral wire and twist it around where the vine intersects to hold it together. Mine held together on its own, so I didn't have to use the wire. I was able to get three tumble weeds out of one wreath.

Former Termite Mounds

I used Great Stuff Expanding Foam to make termite mounds for last year's VBS. I took the foam and sprayed it a pattern on wax paper. Once it was dry, I peeled it off and painted the foam. I wanted to reuse them for this years theme, so I repainted them with the same brown and black spray paints that used on my other cave rocks. Now I can use them as cave rocks in the Firefly Caverns.

Farm Bags

I made these for the bible study room with the Boomerang Express theme. I cut up burlap and sewed small sacks that could be tied at the top. I stuffed them with whatever was laying around the house. They were great to stick in corners of the classroom. This year I am going to use them in Blazing Star Stables.

Blazing Star Lamp

I wanted to make some sort of light feature for the Blazing Star Stables. I decided to make a star paper lantern. Origami has never been my forte. I don't think I have the patience for it, but I found a step-by-step guide for making a 3D star that even I could follow.

3D Paper Star - Paper Star Ornament with Template

I added a few steps to make this fit our theme:

1. I started with black cardstock, but any dark color will work
2. After I completed cutting and folding the points (but haven't glued them yet), I used spray paint to get a metallic look. I chose a brown hammered finish.
3. Once the paint had dried, I used a hole punch to make a pattern in the cardstock. I chose a small circle, but any shape or pattern will work great.
4. Next, I used a glue stick to glue a layer of tissue paper on the inside of the star-points to cover the holes that I had punched.
5. After completing step four, I followed the guide and glued my folded points together. I used hot-glue to make it stronger
6. Once each folded point is glued together, I used the guide to hot-glue all the points together. Since I wanted this to light up, I held off on sealing together the final points on the bottom of the star.
7. Now, how you light the star is up to you. I chose to use Christmas lights. I fed a stream of lights up the points and secured the wires with masking tape. Since this made out of paper and paint, it is flammable, so be careful that your star never gets too hot.

Now you have a blazing star for stables!