As Craft Director for NWCCD (Northwest Christian Camp for the Deaf) I try to provide crafts that stimulate artistic expression, teach new skills and can be reproduced at home for further exploration. I also aim to use up many of the materials I "inherited" with this job 3 years ago, which also supports my goal of keeping within my limited budget.
Since camp is at the beach, I've wanted to do sand candles, but didn't figure out the logistics until this year. I used bagged playground sand so we would not have to wonder about whether any dogs or cats had previously used the granules. To keep things simple and contained, we used styrofoam bowls. Tea lights were the perfect starter for the candles as they have a long wick and also provided a flat base. I had many bags of shells, so it was no problem to let the kids go to town with picking their favorites. After hardening, we dumped the sand and returned the candles to the bowls, then slipped them into zippered plastic bags for the trip home.
Following an activity for making foil patterns in Celebrate Your Creative Self by Mary Todd Beam, the campers used foil covered foam core to make their designs. For the banquet, each table would represent a name of Jesus (vine, shepherd, Lord, etc.) so each camper chose a name and created their foil drawing to match. Younger campers colored with permanent markers; older campers with Lumiere metallic paints and Golden fluid acrylics.
This year we received a donation of over 100 water bottles. We had to hide the company logo (black permanent marker, then turning the foam inside out), then let the kids decorate with foam markers, Galaxy opaque/metallic markers and foam stickers. The theme was Jesus giving us Living Water, but they could decorate anything related to Christ or camp.
Each year we make and sign a huge "Thank You" card for our director and speaker. This year, I decided to use up some leftover shirts instead. For our director, I chose a nice blue and wanted to paint a square for signing because I thought the stiffness of the paint would make signing easier. The shirt moved and the paint didn't cover so well, so I took advantage of that by making a more "grunge" texture background. Everyone thought I was such a great artist! I just fancied up my mistakes!
For the speaker, I wish I had time to cover this shirt with Jesus' name. He had all of us signing Jesus repeatedly as fast as we could as part of his teaching during the week. Instead, I made the name Jesus and a heart filled with the the name of Jesus. He loved it! The back of his shirt also had a grungy square filled with signatures.
Since camp is at the beach, I've wanted to do sand candles, but didn't figure out the logistics until this year. I used bagged playground sand so we would not have to wonder about whether any dogs or cats had previously used the granules. To keep things simple and contained, we used styrofoam bowls. Tea lights were the perfect starter for the candles as they have a long wick and also provided a flat base. I had many bags of shells, so it was no problem to let the kids go to town with picking their favorites. After hardening, we dumped the sand and returned the candles to the bowls, then slipped them into zippered plastic bags for the trip home.
Following an activity for making foil patterns in Celebrate Your Creative Self by Mary Todd Beam, the campers used foil covered foam core to make their designs. For the banquet, each table would represent a name of Jesus (vine, shepherd, Lord, etc.) so each camper chose a name and created their foil drawing to match. Younger campers colored with permanent markers; older campers with Lumiere metallic paints and Golden fluid acrylics.
This year we received a donation of over 100 water bottles. We had to hide the company logo (black permanent marker, then turning the foam inside out), then let the kids decorate with foam markers, Galaxy opaque/metallic markers and foam stickers. The theme was Jesus giving us Living Water, but they could decorate anything related to Christ or camp.
Each year we make and sign a huge "Thank You" card for our director and speaker. This year, I decided to use up some leftover shirts instead. For our director, I chose a nice blue and wanted to paint a square for signing because I thought the stiffness of the paint would make signing easier. The shirt moved and the paint didn't cover so well, so I took advantage of that by making a more "grunge" texture background. Everyone thought I was such a great artist! I just fancied up my mistakes!
For the speaker, I wish I had time to cover this shirt with Jesus' name. He had all of us signing Jesus repeatedly as fast as we could as part of his teaching during the week. Instead, I made the name Jesus and a heart filled with the the name of Jesus. He loved it! The back of his shirt also had a grungy square filled with signatures. 
2 comments:
Wow! What a week. The crafts & shirts are wonderful
Thanks. We had lots of fun!
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