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Full Stage

This month’s set design was inspired by the 252 Basics theme of the month: Tangled. I love the simplicity of this set design, and I hope you will too!

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Back Window

 

 

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Info Table

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have 3 windows in the back of our kid’s room facing the main hallway. We simply used some red yarn we already had on hand and some black gaff tape to create a different “tangled” look on each window. We did a similar design on the windows of our entrance and exit doors. If you don’t have any yarn on hand, you can get a big roll of yarn at Walmart for about $3. Score! In the last few months, we started having a permanent info table with information and sign-up sheets for upcoming events in front of our kid’s room, so I decided to bring the design out to the table as well!  I love bringing the theme out into the whole room, creating an engaging environment, not just a decorated stage. It’s definitely a bonus if you can extend your theme outside of the room as well. I have had a lot more comments and questions about our set design this month because I brought the theme out where the adults could see it!

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Left Side Banners

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Right Side Banners

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For our side banners, we were able to use a background included in the curriculum this month to create that “tangled” effect around the room. You can’t see it extremely well in the pictures, but there is tangled paracord all around and inbetween the banners for an added effect. I used the pictures as a guideline to buy 3 different colors of paracord on Amazon: red, orange and green. It looks pretty awesome in person!

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Stage Left

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Stage Right

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above, you can see a closer view of both sides of the stage. We pretty much included the same elements on each side of the stage for this month. I decided to buy the two cardboard cutouts you see in the pictures based off of the silhouettes in the graphics for the series. I bought the silhouettes of a superhero and a villain on Oriental Trading for only $35 each. Our next theme is Superheroes, so we will be able to re-use them for next month’s set! Once the superhero and villain silhouettes were set up, we strung more red yarn all over them to make them look “tangled up in lies”. We also strung red yarn all over the trussing and keyboard on both sides of the stage to add to the “tangled” look. I sent a brave leader back into the kid’s ministry storage abyss to find all the old Christmas lights we had. We used two strands on each side to create an (all too familiar) tangled mess. Now, for my favorite part of the whole set, the string art. We bought four pieces of black foam board, a little over 1,000 clear push pins, and this twine to create these works of art. We wanted to make the theme and verse clear for the month so we decided to make them say, “Honesty”, “Tangled”, “Lies”, and “James 1:22”. We used this string art tutorial to get us started. They turned out better than we could have ever imagined, and were totally worth all the time and effort.

I absolutely love this theme for the month, talking about honesty and the danger of getting tangled up in lies. There are so many great game and object lesson ideas to go along with the theme. We have already done one game called “All Tangled Up”.  We got a group of kids together from each team and tangled them up in a bunch of yarn. The goal was to try and escape from the yarn before the other group. This week, we are doing another game called “Tangled Up in Lies”. We will pick three kids from each team. Two of the kids from each team will work together to cover the other kid with as much toilet paper as possible in one minute. The toilet paper will have lies and people who can be hurt by our lies written all over it.

I would love to hear other game ideas or ways you can use this theme in your kids ministry.