Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Pentecost Sanctuary

Well, I had planned to make elaborate flames out of fabric and beads and hang them from the lights. 




I started to change my plans for several reasons:  the lights aren't as easy to get to as I thought, and I ran out of time.  But the fabric came in handy for other decorating.






I bought a lot of ribbon when it went on sale after Christmas--look at how it comes in handy for Pentecost!




You may remember that I wrote this post about preparing for Pentecost at the beginning of the month.  I had just gotten back from Synod Assembly, and I was drawn to the idea of streamer sticks.  I'm pleased to report that this idea worked.  Here's the process, from almost the beginning.  I should have taken a picture of the broken drying rack, from which we got most of our dowel rods.  We also used some stakes that are designed for gardening (in the plastic below).





Many of the dowel rods were kind of spotted, so we painted them!


We experimented with ways to affix the ribbons (staples, tape), but tying them and knotting them worked best and was easiest:


We used all kind of ribbons, from the cheap, plastic-ish kind to cloth ribbons. 


I cut the thicker ribbons into smaller strips.






We had a variety of sizes, which was great, because we had a variety of people carrying the streamers.  We didn't have as many children as we often have in church, so I asked high schoolers to help.  They seemed glad to do it. 





I led the procession in, so I'm not sure how it looked.  But several people told me how much they liked them, and several people talked about how festive it was.  Hurrah!  I was going for festive.




Now it's on to the long green season.  Maybe we can insert some festivity into some of those Sundays too.  Maybe a different altarscape here or there.  Let me start thinking ahead!

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