Hey guys, I have posted several times and mentiond that we use Cactus Canyon as a Sunday School Program. We have embarked on 16 weeks with Cactus Canyon just yesterday.

We spent all last week finishing all our decorations and on Saturday put everything up. We are a very small church, but have an amazing group of artisians and craftsmen in our midst. We all pulled together brainstormed and created and this is what we came up with.

We had a kick off day yesterday and served a country camp breakfast and introduced Cactus Canyon to the entire church. The kids were thrilled and excited to learn. The parents and adults were amazed and bewildered at what we had done.

Just wanted to share our pictures and hope that you can take away what ever ideas you can from them and wish you all the best in your Cactus Canyon experience for the coming months!

Any questions about any of the designs, ask away! I tried to explained each photo in the tag line under them.

Happy Trails!!!!

I hope this link works, if not e-mail me for the password and login on!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23689435@N07/

Marsha,
I am from a small church of about a hundred people in Tullahoma, TN
I am the VBS director this year, we are doing the Cactus Canyon this year.
I am totally speechless!!! I have NEVER seen such beautiful work, what a joy to be able to see what your church people accomplished!!
Is the area where all of the "murals" in a fellowship hall? I am trying to decide what areas of the church to decorate.
I was planning on the fellowship hall and kitchen, I saw that your husband made the covered wagon- does he happen to have a template or pattern that we could use?
The pennants are a great idea, what is it that they are attached to? I notice a pattern on it?
Did they draw all of the cattle, freehankd?
I noticed that you said everything was layers of tissue paper and glued onto each other; how did you know what size to make each, and where did you find all of the various colors of paper?
On the general store, did you make all of that or just do some addt'l cosmetic and building to an already existing structure?
It looks like real wood! You mentioned tickets to use at the end of the project, could you fill me in on how you did that?
I LOVE the "barrel" in the corner around the Ficus tree- did you just put wood pieces around it?
The time and unending details that were put into this project really show a sense of pride from your members!!
I apologize for asking SO MANY questions, I would just really like to try to imitate and let the artistically talented people in our church know how everything was done; so that we can HOPEFULLY replicate it somewhat??
Thank you!
Dixie Waller
my e-mail is dnwaller01@bellsouth.net

Dixie!

Thanks for all the compliments!

I took down your e-mail and will send you a reply.

With 100 in your membership, you will surely get a wonderful response with help.

When I say very small in size, I should clarify. We have about 60 members and 24 of those are our KIDDOS! I had about 12 people at work on this for the last month. People took things home and met us at the church too almost every day for the past two weeks. We probably put in about 80 to 100 hours of work on this project, that is if I were to estimate. It was an absolute blast doing this. Not only did we all learn new things from one another, we fellowshipped and ministered to one another as well. God gave us a truly amazing experience and we have only just begun! Our teaching journey with the kids is just starting and who knows what he has in store for us!

I will send you that e-mail now!

Blessings,

Very awesome. You did a terrific job decorating! Certainly took quite the effort- way to go!

What a blessing! Thank you so much for sharing. You have such gifted members and what a blessing to know they are using those gifts to spread the word! Thanks for sharing, I hope to borrow some of your ideas. We too are a small church of only about 30 members, but we always have a good response for VBS. Not very many of our visitors continue to return after VBS, however we know we have planted the seed! Prayers to everyone this VBS. GOD BLESS

Marsha, your decorations are awesome. I've gotten some good ideas from your pictures. Thank you so much for sharing. I was wondering how did you get the tin roof hung on the wall? I would like to try that at my church. My email is toddandshannon@hotmail.com
Thank you
Shannon

Love your decorations, you all have done a wonderful job. The time and talent put into the overall project is amazing. I would however like to ask if you have a materials list for the wagon? I have had visions of what I wanted to do and the wagon has always been one of the main focal points for me, in my head that is.. :-) Also, what paper did you use for all the back drops? With having such a small church, which comes with a small budget, how did you do it all? If got members to donate additional money, please tell me how... This is my first year as VBS Director so I can use all the pointers I can get.

Hello and thanks for all the compliments!

Shannon~ the tin is on a wood frame. It is built like a little porch roof. My husband is a pack rat and has collected old fence slats for years. When he saw anyone tearing down a fence he would ask if he could have what was to be tossed! All our friends know he does this and they donate to the cause from time to time if the run across any. He just ripped these to the size he wanted and made a frame and used 2 x 4s for the posts you see. He just used scrap tin for the roof...which actually we had used elsewhere for JJ and RRT in the past. I have e-mailed you about this.

Rlogsdon~ The wagon is a bit complicated... LOL. It is all wooden fence slats as well, copper tubing bent to make the canopy frame and a piece of canvas. The wheels are from plywood cut with a band saw. (e-mail me (see below) and I will give you more detailed info!)

All of the paper used was bought at the Teacher Supply. The brown paper which you see the majority of (the buildings and the ground for the canyon) I bought by 200 feet rolls. The colored paper I got by the foot.

My entire budget was around $800. I orignally had this grand presentation requesting members of the church to sign up to purchase/donate for each item we needed from the Lifeway materials to craft project materials for the kids all the way down to the paper for our town murals etc. I had a sign up sheet and everything... However, after making my presentation I headed off to CC to teach and about 20 minutes later our Music Minister came and told me I could take down the sign up sheet b/c they had taken up a collection during Sunday Morning offering specifically geared towards Children's Church and Cactus Canyon. We raised $700 on the spot in one morning!!!! The idea I had of the sign up sheet was generally accepted as a cool plan for raising this money... if an offering is not doable, this may be a way to get the funds you need! (I have a copy of my Fundraiser List saved if you would like it- just e-mail me)

I am a cardboard-using crazy person! Just ask Dixie! 95% of our projects are always from cardboard. I raid the Electronic and Appliance store dumpsters around here every chance I get. We are stockpiling cardboard for projects for Outrigger Island for this summer as I write this! I totally 100% believe in using junk, reused paper (my cactus' are all products of JJ green paper) and scraps of anything to save $$$$!

If you guys have more questions, please feel free to e-mail me at dwooten7@gmail.com I will be glad to help you out!

Blessings!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: texasteacher,

Marsha,

Your decor is awesome! Love the backdrop! Can you tell me where you got the jointed cowboy standing beside the bull?

Randy

Hi Randy,

Thanks! We got the cowboy from Oriental Trading.

TexasTeacher
WOW~I am glad to see that you went all out decorating!! I think it is important and something that the children will always remember. (I know that my grandmother who is in her mis 70's still remembers things about VBS when she was a child.) Please add tags to your flikr photos. Adding Lifeway, VBS, Cactus Canyon etc. will help when people arsearching for photos on the website that do not know about this discussion board. I do not want anyone who is using CC to miss out on these GREAT ideas. Take care and happy trails! (I cannot wait to see what you are going to do for Outrigger Island)
Robin

Hi Robin!

Thanks for the compliments. I was wonderin if you could be of assistance to me? I am new to using Flicker and to really putting photos on a site like that. How do you add the tags you were describing. I definitely want others to know exactly what all this is all about and I know the tags are an important resource/research tool for many. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

As for OI... we're just now in the planning stages and are going to be finishing CC the first part of July. We will spend the next two months preparing and building our Island and will begin the new program right after Labor Day. It will last through Dec. It will be fun to have Summer in the Winter for the kids!

We have loads of ideas already and are getting them ready for a planning meeting soon! We are really excited about OI, as my hubby (my co-director) and I love the islands, the ocean and the beach! We should have a blast with the kids with this.

Hi! As one small Texas church to another....We are doing Outrigger Island this week.....if you will tell me where you are, maybe we can share our decorations with you. We're just about the same size church!!

Debbie

Hi Debbie!

We are in Humble about a mile from Bush Int. Airport right outside of Houston off Highway 59! Not really too far from you to meet in the middle perhaps?! My e-mail is dwooten7@gmail.com. Please e-mail me and we can talk about this! Thanks so much for the offer. Blessings!

Do any of you have any left over literature for Cactus Canyon VBS - especially need the Leader Packs for Grades 1-3 and 4-6 (this has posters,
CD with music and sound effects etc) - this didn't in the starter kit and I didn't realize it until the last minute - our VBS is July 27-3l. I have tried to order them but not in stock anywhere. I would appreciate any help! Thanks.

I believe that you may be the same person that e-mailed me over the weekend. I have replied to that e-mail with information regarding what you have requested!