Creative Chaos

I’ve got lots of ideas and rarely much money. We’re finishing up a series called Reluctant Heroes. I created a skyline with black butcher paper, skinnier rolls of white butcher paper that I cut with a chop saw, and some leftover wood from some set pieces the children’s ministry discarded. The result was.. well… just O.K. See for yourself.

For our next series titled TORAH, I wanted to make the stage area a bit more classy and bring in an abstract element relating to traditional Jewish Torah scrolls. I was inspired by a picture on Lincoln Brewster’s myspace, but basically started from scratch on materials and construction.

A sea of orange-brown lanterns to hang above the stage became my vision.

I started looking for handmade paper samples with the help of my sister-in-law. Samples are in the mail so that I can choose the final material. I got a tip about lantern cables/sockets for $4 a piece at IKEA and picked up 29 of those. Then I got really stressed about how to get structure for cheap. I think we’ll most likely end up going with the bottom inch of Cool Whip or Country Crock Containers. When it’s all done we should have them tied into our dimmers above stage and voila! We’ve got our set for the Torah series. I expect to spend about $175 when it’s all said and done. And it’s all completely reusable.

Here’s a picture of the sample I created.