Babylon!!! The Vacation Bible School Mural

Right after we returned home from our Indiana vacation in May I got to work painting flowers and vines....

....in preparation for our Vacation Bible School's theme, Babylon: Daniel's Captivity!

Behold!!! The Hanging Gardens!! 

I couldn't get a good picture of this before know because I had to paint it in two separate pieces in a pretty small space. It measures about 21 feet long and about 6 1/2 feet high. 

This was soooooo much fun to do!!! 

And I'm really proud of it considering how much time I put into it. 

I could do this for a living! I just love to paint BIG! 

The woman in charge of VBS already has a backdrop theme in mind for Christmas!! HA! Don't be surprised if it's done by Halloween; I really love painting this kind of stuff! 

My finished airplane for VBS.

On Monday I posted some pics of my halfway completed plane and a link to the pattern I used to make it. 

Here's the pattern.  I'm sure glad this one is done with. And here are some finished pics. 

I sheepishly admit that this isn't a very good plane. 

I could have done MUCH better but like I had other things that I'd rather be doing and I already have a lot of other projects I'm working on. 

The lady I made it for was happy with it though so I suppose as long as the customer is happy....

I was very surprised though how easily this whole thing went together despite having to enlarge the pattern from 8-9 inches to 5 feet. It wasn't nearly as difficult as it appears. It's just stuffed with newspaper and it only took about an hour for the boys and I to do. The whole thing was spray painted (3 cans) and I used some liquid nails from the hardware store to glue on the wheels and propellers that I cut from a cereal box. I did have to hand sew on the wings and engines with some heavy duty thread. The hardest part was sweet talking hubby into making a wooden frame for the wings to make it sturdy enough to hang from the ceiling without collapsing. 

I think this Vacation Bible School theme (SKY?) is for sale in the Cokesbury catalogs. If anyone is doing this particular theme for VBS I think anyone could make up this plane....even kids could do most of the work on their own. So, if you are needing some props feel free to steal this idea from me.