Monday, July 24, 2006

Crafty Lady

Today commences Vacation Bible School. Now for the last I dunno how many years, roughly since the Mesozoic Era, I've been the arts & crafts lady. I'll be damned, oops can't say that when referring to VBS or they might threaten me with just that fate darned if I was going to help out by teaching actual lessons because it's summer and the kids are least enthusiastic about that part of VBS. Recreation? Do you really want a woman who falls off ziplines in her own backyard running the recreation period? I didn't think so. Snacks? Naw, not interesting enough. Nursery? Hhhhmmm, a small room, with a broken air conditioner, in July, full of cranky toddlers who want Mommy nooooooooooooooowwwwwwww. Not a chance in hell! Oops, there I go again, inviting damnation!

Ok, arts & crafts it is. I get to make messes, fling paint and glue and be an artiste! Five days of crafts for 50 kindergarten through 3rd grade kids in $200 or less. Bwahahahahaha. Now I don't wanna do some dumb door hanger or coloring page that gets tossed the second the kid gets it home. That is, provided it's not heaved in the trash before they even leave. So it's a challenge on a teeny budget.

I've enjoyed it in the past but I have to admit I was sort of hoping I could take a break and use the 'gimp excuse' this year. Better yet I was hoping they wouldn't even ask. Well, they asked. I was, however, so stoned on painkillers when they asked me I smiled vacantly and said, 'Oh suuuuurrrre. Nooooo problem. It'll be fiiiiiiiine.' Then I promptly let the entire conversation fly right out of my head until I was handed the idea book two weeks ago.

The idea book is generally the lamest thing going, by the way. (Make strips of card stock and pass out markers. Tell the children to write a Bible verse on the paper. Look, it's a book mark! Yay!) Puhleeeeze. That would bore me right to tears. Naw, I plan things like
gyotaku when we have visitors from Japan. (Paint the dead fish with a nice coat of acrylic paint. Press the fabric over the fish to make an imprint. Put as many fish on it as you want. Use as many colors as you want. Please let the eyeballs remain IN the fish's head. Please do not terrorize your neighbor with a painted fish.) NOW we're talking arts & crafts.

This year we have visitors from Papua New Guinea so I was looking for crafts that would be reflective of that culture. So I want to know...



Do you think anyone will be upset if I have the kids make penis gourds?


pgourd

21 comments:

Hale McKay said...

Painting dead fish? Hmmm ...

I was just surfing around after putting up a post and came across your site. I scrolled down for several posts and found them interesting enough to make a note to come back soon.

Logophile said...

How could they possibly??

airplanejayne said...

....this is the way you could get out of ever having to teach VBS again!!!!!

:)
The women would just smile as they passed you at church, and then one would whisper, "That's her! SHE's the one that made peepee holders!"


p.s. (I've done VBS for almost as long. One of my personal fave crafts was the year we made kalediscopes from toilet paper rolls. I had the kids collect "interesting things from outside to place inside."

--yup....one kid found a condom wrapper....

lecram sinun said...

penis gourd was exactly what I was thinking... along with "home done" tatoos. Hey, bible verses etched on to their bodies would remind them of their faith forever!

No? Darn!

(M)ary said...

LOL!!!!

hm...what about the girls? i think, to be fair, they should make boob gourds (you may have to explain that the boobs will arrive in about 9 years.)

ps what is the deal with the guys in the picture?? are they trying to make us believe their weiners are soooo big that they curl?!

Kelly said...

LOL, wow I wish you had been my arts and crafts person for VBS!

S said...

Oh LMAO......
Beats burned matchstick crosses any day, Miss Lime!

The funny thing about the penis gourds, in a rapidly modernizing country, it must be quite interesting to have men in jeans standing on the street corner with a man in a penis gourd.....(saw an actual pic like that)

David said...

Hmmm...Maybe if they were allowed to wear them home.

Amber said...

Penis Gourds, how festive! I have seen different kinds of penis gourds on the travel channel, but I must say, those curvy ones are far more impressive to me as a female. J/K. Oh please, who are they kidding, we know they aren't that BIG.

Unknown said...

Now that's hilarious.

Oh, the google hits you'll have after this post!!!

Me said...

Penis gourds, eh? I think it would be fine for VBS, but only if you allow them to make some little fig leaf sacks to go along with 'em.

Stephanie said...

Oh my!!

We never made those in my art class.

James Goodman said...

lol, that's just...wrong! :D

~Tim said...

Well, I was told early in my career that if you get a job that you don't want to do... don't do it well.

Phain said...

knee jerk response from my lips as i read the end... d'oh

Semi-Gloss Lacquer said...

lime...
I just laughed so hard, my neighbors turned their movie down...

...about 30 years ago, this week, at Bible Camp in Pa.
we made shrinki-dinks, (remember those?)

-guess who got in a lot of trouble by starting his figure painting career by making 'girl in bikini' (or not) shrinki-dinks?,
(travel section, just the devils playground I'll tell ya...)
-The church elders were more than ready for me to head off to Art Col. in Phila...

EmBee said...

I can barely see the keyboard through the tears of laughter!

Later today as I'm walking through the grocery store and come upon items like zucchini, cucumbers, bananas & gourds... I'm certain I'll receive sideways glances from passers-by as I start laughing out loud right in the produce section.
Thanks for that!

Amber said...

How about painting rocks to look like blogs (see my post for tuesday). Instead of bugs, you can paint a rock to look like your favorite apostle.

Moosekahl said...

I have a picture of one of those...they have a nice collection at the Field Museum in Chicago :)

Boysenberry said...

Gwarn, go the gourd! It's inspired me to wear one to work, and I can use the reason that we look for cultural diversity... ;)

Suldog said...

I don't know, Lime. If mine curved like that, I'd have to make an immediate appointment with an urologist to get it straightened out. Otherwise, I'd always be peeing on myself.