Roar VBS Decorating: Foyer
Our church foyer is the main entry point for VBS. This space includes our registration area, tshirt sales, photo booth and an activity area for kids with extra time. Check out photos from our Roar VBS foyer decorations below…
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The church foyer is shaped like an octagon, so we have 4 walls to decorate plus the welcome center (which is basically an island in the rear center of the room).
This is the view when you enter the front doors. We made the welcome center into a jeep, which serves as the registration area for those who did not pre-register online. We used black paper and yellow duct tape to create our road. I have a tutorial and more photos of the jeep here.
To the right of the welcome center, we have a large table and our giant giraffe. Here’s how we built our giraffe. This table was set up 4-6 weeks before VBS and included our volunteer sign up information and paper pre-registration forms. At the beginning of VBS, it had name tags made for everyone who pre-registered, along with lanyards. As the week went on (and the nametags were gone), we used this table for crafts that were waiting to be picked up.
This wall is covered with red paper (which is 4′ wide and hung from ceiling to floor). The wall features some signs we made from posterboard and giant permanent markers, as well as our ROAR posterboard letters and a few pieces from our bulletin board set. We also used some borrowed stuffed animals and made a fence for the giraffe from wood and some old bamboo blinds.
To the left of the welcome center is our tshirt wall. This wall is SUPER simple (partially because it’s blocked by the hut and partially because we have the racks of tshirts in front of the wall). I set up two clothing racks with our tshirts for sale. The wall is covered in yellow paper. There are some of our lion head crafts and bible verses hung on the wall.
To the left of the tshirt wall is our african hut. The kids (and adults) get to walk through the hut to reach the sanctuary, which is where we have opening and closing as well as the bible verse station.
The hut was created using a 10′ square pop up tent (the blue you see at the top of the hut is the pop up tent fabric). We used a luau table skirt on the front and back (we cut it to about 1′ long). The luau table skirt was tied to the pop up tent frame and we used painter’s tape to make sure it didn’t fall. We hung strips of african print plastic along the 4 corners of the pop up tent (attached using clear packing tape). The left and right sides and roof of the tent are covered with tan fabric (we got a huge roll of it at a thrift store for $10).
To the left of the african hut is our coloring wall. This turned out to be SUCH a fun feature wall! We hung the coloring sheets a few weeks before VBS and put a tin can of washable markers by the wall. Kids and adults alike colored the posters before VBS. During VBS, the kids would often color right before or after snack when they had a few minutes of down time. This wall is covered with orange paper and features a lion face craft, giraffe fingerprint craft and tissue paper rhino craft.
To the right of the entrance is our photo booth wall. I LOVE how this turned out! At our VBS prep party, we had volunteers draw patterns on strips of red paper. We hung this paper on the wall, then set up a table with photo booth props. Our kids love taking pictures with their crews at the photo booth!
Our photo booth props didn’t cost much! The large leopard head at the right is actually my daughter’s – it’s a drum but I kept the lid at home so it didn’t get broken. We also used a few of the posters from the bulletin board set, a set of homemade binoculars, a flat Jesus, our bible verse canvas painting and some sheets of cardstock with “Life is WILD” and “God is GOOD” written on them. Donated/thrift store props include animal masks, plastic elephant decor and a toy giraffe.
Our foyer is the first and last area kids see when they’re at VBS (and often the only space that parents visit). We try to decorate this space in big visual ways without spending a ton of money. Watch the blog in the coming weeks for decorating photos from the rest of our Roar VBS areas!
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