Summer Creative Camp

About the same time the garden was in full production mode I had a summer creative camp at church for 3rd-8th grade girls to prepare for. So in between making pickles, tomato sauce, and freezing corn & green beans I was perfecting the crafts I intended to share with my young ladies. Besides crafts, the other items we offered were cooking, sewing, drama/singing, and painting. The whole week was so much fun for all involved, especially after such a long time in quarantine. At the end of the first day of camp one of the leaders asked a camper what her favorite part of the day was and she said, “I’m just glad I got to be around people!” It was the best response! This has been a hard summer. The theme for the week was Psalms 143:8 “Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” All the teaching and small group time was surrounded by a lesson each day about a section of that verse.

The camp lasted 5 days, but it felt like 3 weeks to me! It was a lot of prep work and lugging copious amounts of craft supplies & tools to and fro, but it was right up my alley. I loved the chance to get up in my craft room and share my crafts with others, so it was totally worth all the time involved. We had 3 crafts allocated to the 3 age groups. And I thought I would share a few of our final projects in this post. I plan on writing up a full tutorial on the crafts so I can share the process we followed and some of the lessons I learned when working with each project.

For the 3^rd & 4^th grade groups we decorated a wood letter with pretty papers, paper flowers, washi tape and scripture. Some of the girls chose all of the above. If I did this project again, I might narrow the choices a little bit. I love offering lots of options to see the girl’s personalities come out in their crafts. They all did great and were such a fun & giggly bunch. Here are a few of the final projects with my example in the middle:

The 5^th & 6^th grade groups made a wood arrow with the verse they learned during camp as well as a chevron canvas. This project took lots of prep work, but I loved how it turned out. I even was told that I needed to repeat this craft in 3 years when one of the leader’s daughter would be old enough for camp. I love how each arrow turned out to be so unique. Some of the paper & paint combos I never would have thought to put together, but they ended up looking great! The chevron canvas was made with the leftover paper cut for the arrow feathers and I think the girls enjoyed the ability to make their own pattern combinations and designs. Here are a few of the photos from this group with my examples on the left:

The 7^th & 8^th grade groups made a bible collage magnet board. While that was drying they made pretty and colorful magnets to decorate it with and to make it more functional. I needed the board’s final sealant coat to cure for a bit more time before they could add their colorful additions to it, so the pics below don’t show them in all their glory. I think I will message their parents to send me a pic of everything together. Here are a few of the collages as they were drying with my example in the middle:

So this very long week comes to an end and I hope we were able to inspire the next generation of believers to create beautiful things, just as our Father created us and all of the beautiful things that surround us every day.