Hey friends! As most of you know i am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and in our church all members hold “callings” or jobs, our church is a volunteer church, no one gets paid, and currently i serve in the women’s organization called the “Relief Society”. I am the 2nd counselor which means that i am over activities for the women of the church. Its a super fun calling and i have enjoyed every minute of it. You might remember our ice cream social or campout that i planned last year, well last weekend i put on a “Super Saturday”.
Throughout the church the term super saturday is known to the members to be a big craft day where you come and can make multiple different projects at one activity. In the past women attending have been shown the crafts in advance and there is a small fee for the cost of each craft, however the church has asked that members not be asked to pay for any activity held by any organization of the church. So we got approval for a budget and planned our crafts accordingly.
Today i’d like to share some tips on planning a Super Saturday or craft event for a large group of people.
1. Know how many people you are prepping for. This can be hard, especially in a church setting where people are fickle about RSVPing, my best advice is go back to your most successful activity and use that attendance number. We had 60 people at our campout so we used that number because we assumed that it would be as popular, and we were right. We also asked for sign-ups just so we could make sure we would have enough, but honestly we didn’t depend on them, and if we had we would have been stressed because we got 20 RSVP’s during the 4 days leading up to the event.
2. Choose simple, attractive and useful projects. This seems like a no-brainer, but really choose projects that meet the goals of your event, are simple enough for everyone to complete in a timely manner and that are cute! Spend a few hours on pinterest and talk to those that will be coming to the event and see what types of things they might want to do.
3. Have samples of each project to show several weeks in advance. People want to see the things the will be making, the sooner you have your samples the better. Making samples is also key to knowing what supplies you’ll need, how much time the craft will take and how difficult it is. I made a few more crafts than we actually used and then i narrowed down based on the samples.
4. Do your research before you buy your supplies. After you plan your crafts, make a detailed list of each item you will need for each project. When i purchased the supplies for the samples i kept the receipts so that i knew how much each item was that i bought, then i started searching online for those same products. Since you are looking for a high number of items its often better to order online, even if you are getting it from the same retailer as you would in-store. For example the string art that we made i ordered the wood plaque’s on hobby lobby’s website because i knew they wouldn’t have 60 of those in the store and it was much easier to click and buy than to drive around to 4 different hobby lobby stores.
5. Buy your supplies in advance. Continuing what i said above, you may need to purchase your supplies online and for that you need time for shipping. Everything that i needed online i ordered 2 weeks in advance and everything was at my door in plenty of time. There is nothing worse than the stress of going to the craft store 3 days before the event and finding out they are out of the item you need 30 of! Also there are great site and resources online for supplies especially if you are buying quantities like 25, 50 or more. Just search for the item with the words “bulk” or “wholesale”. You can see where i bought our supplies below.
6. Make precise lists for each project. You want a detailed list for each project of all the supplies that you need to purchase but also any tools that you will need to complete the project, like paint brushes, hot glue guns (if using electrical items you probably need extension cords), hammers, cups to put paint in, tape, etc. Depending on your budget you may be able to buy some items (like paint brushes) but you will need to round up other items (like hot glue guns). We asked several people individually to bring items like hot glue guns and hammers, we asked for more than we needed as to ensure that we had enough in case some people forgot. You could also collect them beforehand.
7. Have an easy “non-craft”. If your ward is like our some people attending the event may just be coming to socialize and not really be interested in working on projects, this is ok. We had one little giveaway project that was very simple, a photo quiet book, it was a $1 photo album that they could fill with photos we had on a table that we printed. All you did was put the photos in the photo album, its a great quiet book for kids and everyone that attended left with something even if they didn’t “make” anything.
8. Write instructions for each project. I spent an afternoon and typed up detailed instructions for each project. It was very helpful at the event for each person to have a little slip of paper at each project that they could read and then ask questions if they arose. If you have step-by-step photos from an online tutorial or some that you have taken print out a couple copies to have on the tables for reference.
9. Assign someone to assist at each craft. Because you are only one person and you don’t want to be running around like a chicken with your head cut off, assign a separate person to each craft that can be the point person to hand out supplies and for those working to ask questions. Meet with each of these people in advance (i had mine come 45 minute before the activity began) and explain the project to them, let them make it if they want, and make sure that they feel comfortable enough to assist everyone. This was one of the best things i did the day of so i wasn’t tied to any one craft and could float around and make sure everything was running smoothly.
10. Prep your supplies. This can make a huge time difference, for instance we made rope necklaces and the rope was purchased in a 600 foot spool. If we had just brought the spool to the activity and had each sister cut their own rope it would have sucked a lot of time, so we cut the rope in advance. If you want to do a project that has multiple steps that wouldn’t be able to be complete in the time of the activity considering doing a first step beforehand. We made wood signs that i stained beforehand so that those attending could attach the vinyl letters and then paint them at the activity. We had roughly an hour and half for those attending to complete 3 projects so we did as much prep as possible to ensure it was feasible to complete all the crafts.
Please check back this week so you can see detailed instructions on how to do each project, now for where the supplies were purchased.
Nautical Knot Rope Necklace
Supplies needed & where i bought them:
Rope- 600ft spool
Faux Seude- walmart had a spool with a large amount on it, i only needed 1!
Hot glue sticks- walmart
Wood Board Signs
Wood- Home Depot, i purchased 6ft x 6″x1″ boards and had them cut them down to 18″ each, one board cut into 4 pieces, they ended up being less than $1 for each 18″ board.
Stain- Home Depot, miniwax early american
Paint- Flat white interior latex paint, 1 gallon
Vinyl- I ordered 2 rolls of 12″ by 10 yds HERE and then cut out the letters on my silhouette cameo
brushes- the dollar tree actually carries great home painting paint brushes (not craft paint brushes)
Temple String Art
Wood Plaques- Hobby Lobby online
White 1″ panel nails- Home Depot
String- walmart 10 gauge white string
Template to download HERE
Quiet Book
Photo Albums- $1 albums at dollar tree & walmart (i tried to order them on dollartree.com and couldn’t because they were out of stock, but my local store had 48 on hand)
Photo printing- Snapfish prints 4×6 prints for 9 cents, which is by far the best price i’ve found
You can download the photo book HERE, then pop in the images from the gospel art kit online- she explains it all on the place to download the book.
If you take on hosting a Super Saturday i hope this has helped, our event was so successful, everyone (i think!) had a great time, enjoyed the projects and left with awesome stuff. I believe helping people to see the possibilities they have to create things is a wonderful thing.