Crafts

This is a great idea to help your youth groups really feel like a group. Get someone artistic (preferably one of the youth) to design a funky logo for the group. Or you could have a competition to see who can design the best logo. Get hold of some screen printing screens (talk to schools or anyone you know who’s crafty). Trace the logo onto plastic adhesive, cut out the image so that the logo creates a hole in the plastic, and then stick the sheet of adhesive onto the printing screens. Get the youth to bring along t-shirts, material, underwear – whatever! – and everyone can have a go at printing the logo. The paint to use is reasonably cheap, and the screens are easy to clean up. The youth will come away with something they’ve made that identifies them with the rest of the group, and most likely they would have had a lot of fun doing it! (Check with someone who knows how to screen print before you do this activity, to find out exactly how to go about doing it.)

Two kinds of candles that are easy and fun to make.

Supplies:
– crock pot to melt wax
– wax available through craft suppliers
– wicking
– styrofoam bowls
– 16oz cold cups
– sand
– things from nature
-ice
– crayon shavings

SAND CANDLES — tape the wick to the bottom of the styrofoam bowl. Fill part way with sand, have kids make a mold in the sand. Pour wax into the sand mold, add leaves, glitter, grass, flowers, petals, etc. Let set (3-4 hours). To take candle out of mold, break bowl and brush sand away.

ICE CANDLES– Tape wick to bottom of cup. Fill the cup with ice. Pour wax into cup. Add leaves, grass, glitter, flowers, etc. Let wax set. (3-4 hours). Gently tear cup away letting the water run out of the candle. YOu will have a candle with natural holes. NEAT! To add color to the candles have the youth use crayon shavings. Add those after it is poured into the mold.

You will need one medium-sized styrofoam cone, bag of wrapped peppermints, and straight pins. Simply push the peppermints into the cone with the pins. After you have completely covered the “tree”, you may then decorate with miniature tree ornaments, garland, etc…with a gold star on top! These are really very cute and inexpensive to make.

This game, which can unfortunately become expensive, involves creating things from random materials. I started buying materials from a local craft store and bought 4 of everything. It included styrofoam balls (large and small), dowel rods, animal fur, yarn, tape, colorful pipe cleaner, empty 2 liter coke bottles (a must), feathers, stick glue, etc. Divide up the teams and allow them to work on their creation. Guidlines are a good idea. Such as it has to be a robot, person, or animal. Give it a name and possibly a story. The crowd loved the inventions.

I saw this in a catalog and it looked easy enough to make. Paint a terra cotta pot white, and the band of the pot black (for the hat). Glue on different size buttons for the eyes, nose, and to form the arch for the mouth. Use red paint or rouge to give the snowman rosy cheeks.

You’ll need for each youth: 1 quart sized Mason canning jar or other similar jar with a lid, a battery powered window candlestick (I found them at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby around Christmas time), and a small lampshade that fits over the christmas tree light bulbs of the candlesticks.

Additionally, you’ll need decorating materials such as ric-rac, buttons, stickers, fabric paints, glitter glue pens, leather laces, lace trim, yarn, fringe, “jewels”, whatever might trim a lamp shade.

Before the meeting time, use a drill press or punch to cut a hole in the top of the jar lid that is just big enough for the candlestick to fit through.

A week or two in advance, instruct the youth to bring small items that mean a lot to them or that bring back special memories. Examples are trinkets won for Sunday School attendance, keychains or other tokens from youth trips, ticket stubs from a favorite Christian concert, ring from a bubble gum machine when you were little, token from a grandparent or other relative. Any small items that will fit in a jar.

Have the youth glue the candlestick in the bottom of the jar. Next have them paint or decorate the lamp shade. Finally, fill the jar with their memories.

I used this as a Sunday School lesson for my Jr/Sr Highs with two topics of focus. The first was “Jesus is the light of the world.” Each youth’s lampshade was unique with varying amounts of light showing through which really helped bring home the idea that each of us shows God’s love through our lives in varying degrees. Are you a dark or light lampshade? The second topic of focus was on the special memories of the youth’s items. Many of mine, as a youth leader, were from past youth camps, trips, and meetings. Several students had small items from when they were babies. This is a very special way to store those small trinkets and occassionally reflect on the memories they hold. Makes a great nightlight that works during power outages, too!

Variation: A small strand of Christmas lights can be wound through the trinkets instead of a candlestick/lampshade. If you do this, do not cut a hole in the jar lid. Also, be sure to use the small twinkling lights that don’t get hot… helps avoid fires.

To make snowglobes, you will need:

glass jar w/ a plastic lid
glitter
ceramic or plastic figurine
hot glue gun and glue sticks
water

First, glue the figurine standing up to the inside of the plastic lid. While that is drying, fill the jar about halfway with water and add as much glitter as you would like. Fill the jar completely and after the glue is dry, place the lid tightly on the jar. Turn it upside down and shake the gltter up. If the jar leaks, you may want to glue around the edges of the lid and tie a ribbon around it.

I read your snow globe idea and I wanted to add from my own experience.
To seal the lids use some plumbers tape around the top of the jar before screwing on the lid. Also some glycerin added to the water and glitter helps the glitter not to clump up. Just a few drops is all you need. This can be purchased where cake decorating supplies are sold.
Good luck =)

Cut photos of Youth Group to make a collage on large box with fitted top taped shut. After securing, in a solid fashion, pictures on all sides and perhaps large numbers for the year, put clear contact paper over the pics. They make wonderful decorations, are good conversation pieces and can be thrown around for fun. You can even put dried beans or fun rattles inside. Make smaller boxes with leftover photos that make cute storage when stacked.

Since there are so many references to the fact that God knows us by name in the Bible, making name bracelets is a great way to convey that message and help kids remember it! Get stretchy string so that they can be removed easily, a variety of beads to accessorize and the little square beads that have a letter on each. Let the kids pick out the letters of their name and the decoration beads and create a bracelet (or necklace) with their name on it. This way when they look at it they can remember that God isn’t just a huge and distant God, but a close one who loves us and knows us by name.