Australian Adventure Vacation Bible School

Our church's Epic Australian Adventure vacation Bible school was a big success! We are a rural church in the middle of several small towns, with children coming from miles around. We were excited to welcome 40 children, most not from our congregation.

We decorated the fellowship hall the Sunday afternoon before VBS started the next Monday evening. We got our ideas mostly from the Internet. The decorating crew was members of our congregation, including some of the kids. They were so excited to help, and for us to use their ideas.

    

This was the main wall. The kids chose where the silhouettes were placed. 

This was one of the trees in the classroom where I taught the Bible lesson of the day. 

This was the tree in the other corner. The 'stumps' were five-gallon buckets with paper on them, borrowed from another local church. These were the seats for the kids. We did get a few comments that they weren't that comfortable.

I dressed as their adventure guide. 

This corner of the room represented the Great Barrier Reef. 

The sign-in table was decorated with bamboo. They have bamboo in Australian, right?

My granddaughter made pipe cleaner chameleons for me. I moved them around every day.

One of the local libraries had this cute cardboard camper they let us borrow. Everyone liked how this corner came out. The kids loved having their pictures taken driving the jeep.

The first lesson of the week was how God called Moses with the burning bush. The kids loved our burning bush - an electric 'fire'. A tabletop device with red and orange cloth 'fire' which was lighted, with a fan inside to make the cloth stand up and wave. We put fake leaf garlands around it. It looked amazing!

We had a great week. The kids were enthusiastic and enjoyed the activities and the singing. From listening to them talk to their parents on the final night they got a lot out of their time spent with us. They went home excited about what they had learned and singing the songs that went along with the lessons. Some were already asking if we were going to do it again. 

I'm not sure how much like Australia we made it look, but it definitely was different than normal! We even left the decorations up for the next Sunday so the rest of the congregation could see them, too. 

Putting on the VBS was a lot of work, but well worth it. I'm just glad I won't be in charge next year!

I didn't tat much at all that week because I was so busy. I didn't even get to the earrings I wanted to make. Instead of having the kangaroo charms with tatting, I wore just the charms. Unfortunately, what I did tat was for sympathy cards. I made a second cross due to another death in our congregation. 

I am back to having time to tat and have started several projects. Nothing to show yet, but I'm excited about them.

I just saw yesterday that the Lacemakers Guild of Oklahoma posted about their annual Lace Embrace in Dewey, Oklahoma on October 4th. My sister and I are planning to go. It sounds like fun!

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 ESV Bible

 

Christmas Bells

 While I have been busy with vacation Bible school issues, my sister, Elaine, has been tatting for Christmas. You know how it is, if you are making Christmas ornaments or gifts, you have to start way early to get them done in time. My sister has been looking over patterns to use for her ornaments for several months already. She decided to use my Christmas Bell pattern for some of them. (I'm very flattered).

Check out these cute bells! She added charms that reflect the interest of the different recipients instead of jingle bells. I love how they look with the charms. 

Elaine has also been trying out my Christmas Ornament 2023, which incorporates charms or beads, too. We have been searching through our beads to see what we have between us that she might like to use. The ones she has shown me look great.

Elaine has had time to tat, I've been too busy to do much. After the vacation Bible school - which went great! - I've had other things I have been busy with, keeping me from doing much tatting. I did take the time out to tat a cross for a friend of mine whose father died a couple of weeks ago. Some things are important enough you just take the time to do.

I made my Graduation Cross again. I like the look and it's easy to do. 

I'm now doing post-vbs work - making sure all the thank-you notes are written, organizing all the receipts, figuring out what to keep and what to get rid of by recycling or donating, and cleaning up the mess I left of my desk. I'll be sharing pictures soon. Not of the mess, of the vbs decorations, lol!

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."    Dwight D. Eisenhower

Australian Distraction

 I haven't taken much time to tat this week. Okay, maybe I haven't tatted at all this week. I've not only been busy but distracted as well.

This year I am the head of the Board of Education for our church. This means that I'm in charge of the Vacation Bible School, which is next week. For the last several weeks I've been organizing people and items needed for this event. And I'm not a very organized person! I'm a bit stressed. 

The theme this year is Epic Australian Adventure, so I've been working on Australian themed decorations, including trees.

This tree is paper covered pool noodles. I'm not sure this is what we're going with, not even that it looks like a tree from Australian, but I'm sure it will be used. Pinterest is a great place to get ideas as well as how-tos. I made this one at home so I could gage how long this would take to make. We might have to take it apart to get it to the church. I hope not!

My job during VBS itself is the story leader. I had this idea that I should dress à la Steve Irwin, shorts and shirt in the same color and hiking boots. I cannot wear anything that is khaki colored, it makes me look sick, so I chose to go with a jungle green color instead. The shorts are a bit lighter color, but the shirt is an exact match as my hat! I think it will be fun!

I want to make fun earrings to go with my outfit. I found some Australian animal charms on Amazon that I'm sure I can make into a pair of earrings by next Monday, the start of our VBS. I just need to decide if I should go with a green thread to match the clothes, go with something bright, or ? 

I'll play with color choice tomorrow, when the light it better. We have a storm coming in at the moment - even though the weather man on the 6:00 PM news said that the stormy weather would all stay north. Time to get off the computer. 

What color do you think I should make my earrings?

"I have no fear of losing my life - if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it."

Steve Irwin

Coral Wave

The Wave earrings my niece asked me to make for her are done! 

The color in this picture is not what I would have liked to post, but it's the best of the pictures I took. They did come out nicely. I haven't yet arranged with her to mail them, but they should go out this week. Yay!

(I just noticed I've got the overlap on the earrings going in opposite directions! I fixed it!)

I don't crochet but I enjoy seeing it. This might be why I found a story on Facebook today.

If you go to the National Parks Service internet page and type in 'crochet' in the search bar, you get links to several crochet patterns. Who would have thought? They are pretty cute!

Let me know what you think of them. 

                         "If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?" Steven Wright

Earrings Requested

After seeing them on Facebook a niece asked me to make her a pair of the 'Wave' earrings. I asked her what colors she would like and she requested coral and teal. The coral thread I have, but I didn't have any beads that were teal. I was fortunate enough that I went to Hobby Lobby on a week where the beads were 50% off! With a little help from one of the associates stocking the beads I found what I think will work.

Now that I have the beads, it shouldn't take long to make the earrings. 

 I mentioned a few weeks ago that I have been having trouble with my computer. It wasn't just my imagination, it started making a terrible noise when I was using it. I shut it down to save it as much as possible until something could be done. Unfortunately, that something is getting another computer.

I didn't plan on buying another computer at this time, but I use it a lot. I pay bills, work with pictures, write my blog, and write and diagram my patterns. I do the pictures and the patterns with special programs that will have to installed on the new computer. I don't think the picture program will be a problem, but the pattern program could be. Until I get that program going, I will not be able to work on, or modify, any patterns. If there is any issues with it, I'll have to find another way to do them. This has me a bit worried.

I have been working to update my blog since I have returned it to Blogger. There are a lot of links that are broken that I'm not sure how I'm going to fix. There are pattern links I know how to fix that are now delayed due to not having access to the pattern program. 

I have been using, and am very happy with, Serif Draw, the vector program I use for patterns. I've upgraded computers before and it installed correctly, but I'm always a bit concerned if it will work correctly on the new computer. I really don't want to learn a new program. 

If there are any patterns that are temporarily unavailable, contact me and I'll see what I can do. As for the rest of the broken links, one small step at a time.

"Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window." Steve Wozniak