Volcanic

MJ Stote from Pepperell Christian Fellowship in Pepperell Massachusetts brings us VBS volcano.

For their Tropical Adventure theme they constructed two large props made to be used together ( and apart ). The first being a Volcano and the second a Waterfall.

They needed to design props that would have dual use : 1 ) Advertise their Vacation Bible School program on a Parade Float and 2 ) Be able to re-use the props in the Main Sanctuary during the actual VBS Program.

They began with a modular design that would be two halves of a whole that could sit on a 16 foot long parade trailer, but could come apart again in order to fit through the church doorways for the eventual VBS display purposes.

The budget was limited to 300 dollars, so after purchasing wood, spray paint, and a few special fabrics, they asked the congregation for other supplies such as chicken wire, newspaper, and empty milk jugs. Pool noodles, zip ties, and other decorative items like pinwheels were purchased at the dollar store. The team also made flowers out of coffee filters.

For the Volcano they used paper mache over framed chicken wire and then spray painted it. They made the rocks by spray painting milk jugs and then cut them into halves and hole punched a set 2- 3 holes on each side. This allowed them to zip tie them into groups of 4 or 5 across – up to ten or more at the widest parts. They then stretched sets of jugs across the front stapling to the edges of the wood frame, as the paper mache was too fragile.

The “Lava” was made with orange felt material attached to the top of the Volcano Frame with staple gun and with Orange Pool Noodles covered with metallic fabric added for 3D details ( after some trial and error, both staples and colored duct tape were needed to hold the edges of the metallic fabric to the pool noodles and felt ) .

For the Waterfall they used white and blue plastic tablecloth as a base layer. They were then able to attach the blue pool noodles and metallic material. Gray Painted jugs were zip tied through the plastic cloth and the chicken wire. The flowers were attached with both pipe cleaners and zip ties.

Thankfully a large tent was available for storing outside between the week of the Fourth of July parade and the week of VBS (about 2 weeks) as they had several days of downpours.

For the end of their VBS program they decided to add string lights to the waterfall and battery operated flashing lights on top of the volcano.