Roar VBS Decorating: Sanctuary (Opening & Closing)
Our sanctuary hosts our opening and closing for all ages (nursery/toddler, preschool and elementary kiddos). Check out photos and supplies we used to decorate our sanctuary for Roar VBS…
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Major supplies used in this area:
–Staple gun
–Red paper roll
–Orange paper roll
–Yellow paper roll
–Black paper roll
–Double stick tape
–Scissors
–Cardstock paper
–Posterboard
–Chisel tip permanent markers
–Stuffed animals
–Baby gate
–Painter’s tape
Our stage was actually pretty easy to decorate this year! My husband built 8′ tall wooden posts from 2x4s, then we used a staple gun to attach strips of red and orange paper to the posts. (If you scroll down a few photos, you’ll see the wood posts before they were fully covered.)
We cut a sunshine from yellow paper and attached the rays using school glue. The large black animals are also cut out from large rolls of paper and were attached using double stick tape. I have a tutorial on how we made the animal silhouettes here. (Also, the photo above is a screenshot from the walk-through video… that’s the best full-stage photo I have showing the modified backdrop. Oh well!)
We share our decorations with other churches. One of them got the ROAR cardboard display from Group. Since she was using a lot of our decor after our VBS was over, she loaned us her sign for our VBS.
I decorated sheets of posterboard with the daily bible point using a giant sharpie and hung them on the walls to the left and right of the stage (you can see 3 of them above – they’re the yellow, red and brown posterboards).
My dad has a Rhino (convenient name for this VBS, huh?!) so I talked him into parking it on stage for the week. If you have precious borrowed items that you don’t want kiddos to bother, I’d suggest using them as stage decor! It’s a great way to incorporate borrowed items while keeping them safe. In front of the stage we put a baby gate to keep kids from running on stage. We sat stuffed animals in front of it. They were a hit! We borrowed ours from a family at church, but I know some churches purchase stuffed animals then use them as VBS giveaways.
The church sanctuary has pews that do not move, so we put each crew in a pew or two (except nursery/toddler and preschool kiddos, who are in the very front pews and the area between the pews and the stage). We printed our crew signs on colored cardstock paper then attached them to the pews using rolled up painter’s tape. Our canvas crew bags stay in the pews after VBS each night.
As you leave the sanctuary, you pass our offering collection area. This year we raised money for a local organization that gives loans to small businesses in Africa (check out more information about Mission Resource International here). The kids got to put their offering in a drum for the business they’d like to support. The offering drums were made from flower pots, burlap fabric, jute ribbon and some strings of beads from our supply closet.
I found animal masks at Target after Halloween (80% or 90% off clearance). They made a cute addition to the sanctuary. I used the zebra masks from the same collection in our Imagination Station area.
Check out more of our Roar VBS spaces in the decorating walk-through video and the foyer decorating article. I’ll keep posting more spaces over the next few weeks!
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