Shipwrecked Decorating Spaces: Foyer

Our church has now finished Shipwrecked VBS!  It was an awesome week of island adventures and sweet moments with our kiddos and adults.  This is the first of several posts where I’m going to share decorating photos from each of our Vacation Bible School spaces (watch for future posts of our other areas).  Please feel free to add your ideas in the comments below!  I’ll add links in this post for the tutorials and/or supplies.  Let me know if you have any further questions about supplies or projects – I’m happy to give more details on anything!

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The foyer is the main entrance to our VBS program.  This large room has our registration and name tag centers, as well as tshirt sales, a missions focus wall and the photo booth.  Our walls in this room were all covered in green paper.  The large roll of paper was less than $50 and we still have a lot of it left!  Throughout the room, you’ll see our station banners.  These cost under $2 each and are reusable.  I’m so glad I ordered them this spring!  You can also print your own Shipwrecked VBS station signs.

WELCOME CENTER (REGISTRATION)

Our wooden welcome center (which is permanently in the center of the room) is the registration center for kiddos who didn’t pre-register online.  This year, we set up a pop-up tent, hung tablecloth vines on the sides using binder clips and attached grass skirts to the welcome center using clear packing tape.  We also added miscellaneous flower luau accents.

This is the view from inside the registration center.  We have a clipboard for each group, so the registration gal can add kids names to the list as they register.  Name tags sit right above each clipboard.  The registration gal writes the kid’s name on a name tag, then put it in a clear sleeve and hand it to the child.  They can take it to the name tag table and choose any color lanyard.

This is a close up view of one crew’s clipboard.  We combine two grades in each crew rather than using fully mixed age crews.

Our nursery/toddler kiddos (birth through age 2) use sticker name tags.  Kids with allergies receive a red wristband with their allergy written on it.  If allergies are environmental (asthma, animals, etc), the wristband is put in the back of the ID badge sleeve.  If allergies are food-related, kids are required to have the band on their wrist at all times.

NAME TAGS

The name tag wall was covered in green paper, then decorated using tablecloth vines, flowery luau decor, bible points written on green copy paper and our Shipwrecked wooden sign (One wood piece says “Welcome ashore”, while the other says “Jesus rescues”. and both of them are screwed onto one of our wooden sign posts).  The table was covered with a 6’x8′ blue tarp, then hula skirts were added using clear packing tape.  Miscellaneous decor on the table includes our felt sign board, leis and inflatable globe beach ball.

Once kids receive their name tag at the registration table, they come to the name tag table.  Kids who pre-registered online have name tags already at this table.  Each group is distinguished by the paper color of their actual name tag.  All kids and adults choose any color lanyard they want.  Crew guides have name tags the same color as their crew.  All other adults have white name tags (using the same template as the kids, but with “staff” on it).

MISSIONS FOCUS

This year, we chose Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.  We collected bars of soap and new/gently used stuffed animals.  We built a cross out of shoeboxes and put containers for collecting soap & stuffed animals.

We used some of our paper chain vines and green copy paper to highlight how many shoeboxes were sent by our church last year.

Our goal was to collect 500 items for the week.  I used a marker to trace a palm tree on the green paper.  As items got donated each evening, I wrote our new total and colored in part of the palm tree.

PHOTO BOOTHOur photo booth wall was covered in green paper, then a tree made using brown paper.  We added paper chain vines, a treasure chest (made from a styrofoam cooler) and a big wooden ship wheel (passed on to us from another church).

The photo booth props included big sunglasses, beach balls, pool noodle life preservers, a coconut cup, cheap leis, an inflatable toucan and the treasure chest (shown in the last photo)!

TSHIRTS

We don’t have the budget to provide tshirts for free, but we do offer them for sale at cost.  (I make the shirts for our church and a few other churches/non-profits).  On this wall, we (again) used tablecloth vines and hung grass skirts around the table.  I also hung my shirts on the wall (although I took one down each evening to wear it – ha!).

We let kids choose from a few VBS designs or a cross with our church name.  We sold shirts in the 2 Sundays before VBS, during VBS and on the Sunday of the VBS program.

In the area leading into the sanctuary, we continued the brown paper tree branch with paper chain vines attached.  I also hung grass skirts over one of the doorways.  We have two sets of doors leading into the sanctuary.  I typically decorate one entrance (for the kids to use) and leave one blank (so people with wheelchairs/mobility issues don’t have to navigate a crazy entrance).

Thanks for reading!  Share this post at the top of the page, then follow Borrowed Blessings for more VBS Resources & Ideas!  Stay tuned for decorating pictures from more of our Shipwrecked VBS areas.