DIY Week 1: Midway Valentines

I have been involved in the church's youth group IMPACT for three years. Although the first two years I was a slacker, I came back strong and spirited, ready to work with my leaders to improve the group. My goal is to spread influence and bring more art into the children's ministry as well as for IMPACT.

Art. Art is what spreads ideas and pretty much shapes us into what we are. For my DIY project, I will be using art to express and tell stories to the people around. Every art project has the purpose of reflecting on the Bible and its stories and ideas.  It will vary from decorating, posters, and a mural in the children's ministry room.

Throughout the process, my mentors will be my mom and some of my leaders, which are Lanny, Richard, and TT. My backup team members also include Pinkie and my brother.

DIY Week 1: Midway Valentines

Plan:

**This blog post was started last Friday, February15, 2013 and finished Friday, February 22, 2013
Tonight around 6-8, I'm going to meet up with my friend Pinkie to begin decorating for our Midway Valentines event. Basically our job is to glam up the high school room, which is Thanksgiving themed, in orange and brown, into a whole new Valentines paradise. It's going to be hard since this room is one of the biggest rooms at our church, but if we work hard, then we can do it.

For our Valentines Day decorations, the budget is a solid $50. Our supplies include balloons, streamers, rose petals, table cloths, fake flowers, 1 roll of tape, ribbons, yarn, paint, markers, scissors, construction paper, and a hole puncher. (Note: The supply list may increase due to last minute adjustments and ideas)

Our colored theme will be the obvious pink, white, and red. The overall theme for this event is about God's love, so we'll be making posters that are going to be hanging throughout the room with quotes and bible verses having to do with God's love in our daily lives. Along with the posters, we'll be making a balloon arc, a cherry blossom tree, and we'll have streamers coming down from the doors on the sides and ceiling. (Note: Some of these ideas may change because there's a Viet school class that takes place on Saturday morning and our party is from 1-7. We do not want to risk having our hard work destroyed by some kids that are "hyper and pumped" for their Vietnamese class.)

Whatever that we don't finish we will continue the next morning. I'm sure that we'll be making our balloon arc and taping up whatever decorations that we didn't get to for the night.

Results:

The results for the DIY turned out better than I had expected. First of all, we only spent $13 for our decorations, since we bought our supplies from the Dollar Store and Richard came in with some decorations that he took down from his classroom. I'm very glad that we were able to save money and have a turnout that was much better than I had hoped for and planned for.

Friday's results: On Friday my friend Pinkie and I met up at 6pm to start decorating. We spread out supplies across the floor and began writing quotes on hearts, putting up some streamers, making flowers and cherry tree. During that time, Pinkie and I were working up to 7pm, when we were interrupted by the TLC, I don't know what that stands for but the group consists of the Vietnamese speaking youth. (IMPACT is for the english high ministry). We completed our task for the night with only balloon blowing, a cherry blossom tree, and some hearts to work on. Honestly, we did a pretty good job despite being distracted and a bit annoyed by the other group. (* I only took two pictures that night because there were too many people all over the place and I had only wanted a picture of my decorations.)

Saturday's results: After spending the rest of my Friday night finishing up on the last decorations, I arrived at church at 10am to tell the Vietnamese school principal to tell the students not to mess with out  decorations, blah blah blah. While waiting for my friend Jenny to arrive, I spent my time cutting out about 80 strings, all at an arm's length for the balloons. When she arrived, we took advantage of the Viet school's break-time to tape the last decorations around. 

When Tommy and Loc arrived, they took out the helium tank from the shed and we began blowing up our balloons, which reminded me of the movie UP, except the balloons were all in pink and red.  I did the best I can with the balloon arch.We finished everything around 1:30, so we started the party a bit late, but the decorations were done and amazing.

Photos:

Before: 

Materials:

After: