Are you looking for ideas for Young Women Camp Crafts? I have 5 ideas for camp crafts and how to do them easier and on a budget.
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YW Camp Crafts are a big deal. Anyone who's been to yw camp can attest to that. This year I elbowed my way in and pushed people out of the way to be in charge of crafts at YW camp. haha. Really, I just volunteered.
I'm obviously a craft gal, so this was right up my alley. But I've been to YW camp several times in the last few years so I know what an ordeal camp crafts can be. Also this year as a member of the stake YW presidency, I was heavily involved in planning and executing camp so I knew I had to simplify crafts.
My goals for camp crafts were that they be fun but not difficult, entertaining for all crafting abilities, inexpensive and crafts that the YW can do by themselves. That's kind of a tall order, but I was able to accomplish this by doing lots of craft research, which of course involves a Pinterest board.
5 Ideas for Young Women Camp Crafts
I narrowed down my options to 5 camp crafts which were:
- Rope Rainbows
- Floss Wrapped Keychains
- Pen Holder for Journal
- air dry clay charms
- wooden chalkboard
How to Make Kits for YW Camp Crafts
If I wanted the YW crafts to be self led, then I needed to make sure that the yw had access to all of their crafts and the supplies. So I decided to put together kits for each of the crafts. This was a major budget saver because I could control the amount of supplies used.
Rope Rainbows
I made 4 yard bundles of 3 different colors of yarn for each kit. As I said here, I found this yarn for pennies on the FB marketplace so we had plenty. Side Note: At many of our meetings, you could find me bringing my yarn and yardstick to make the 300 yarn bundles I needed. I cut all of the rope into 2 8", 9.5" and 11" pieces of rope. I placed all of these items into a baggie.
In the craft room at our camp, I had a glue gun station with many glue guns and glue sticks. I also had printed out several copies of the crafting instructions for making the Rope Rainbow.
Journal Pen Holder
I cut elastic ribbon into a 20" piece and a 2" piece. I placed the elastic pieces into a small baggie.
I had a station in the craft room with needles and thread for the yw to sew the elastic closed and I included instructions for making the Journal Pen holder.
Floss Wrapped Keychains
I cut the cotton rope into 6" and 8" pieces. I included 2 keyrings and 1 jump ring. For the floss, I considered putting the pre packaged floss bundles in the kits, but I knew the floss would get tangled and that would lead to a lot of waste. So I cut small pieces of white cardstock and wound the floss around them. I was able to break up each floss bundle into 2 different kits. Of course, this took forever, but it was totally worth it and I was so happy it was done before the chaos of camp.
This kit didn't need any extra supplies, so I just had a few of these instructions sheets printed out and placed in the craft room.
Once I had all of the supplies for each craft in it's own baggie, I placed them into a large plastic tote and moved on to the next craft. Repeat. Repeat.
Not pictured are the air dry air dry clay charms and chalkboards.
- For the clay charm kit, I cut blocks of air dry clay into about 15 pieces and put them in small baggies. At the clay station, I had clay cutters, rubber stamps and letter stamps available for the yw to stamp messages onto their clay.
- For the chalkboards, in our YW supplies, we had tons of 1x6 pieces of wood leftover from a previous year, so I hauled all of those up to camp in a tote. We had a painting station at camp with chalk board paint and brushes to make small chalkboards.
One evening before camp, I put on a movie at my house and dragged out all of the totes I had placed each individual craft kit in. Then I had my family help me put the large kits together in ziplock bags.
Inside gallon ziplock bags we placed one kit each of a rainbow, keychains, pen holder and clay charms. Repeat, repeat times 100!
I hauled several totes of craft kits and miscellaneous craft supplies up to camp.
Once I got to camp, the crafts were smooth sailing. During craft time, I was able to hand out the kits with all the supplies each YW needed. We had spots in the room for the girls to sit and work on each of their crafts. They really enjoyed crafting at their own pace. They could take the kit with them to work on during free time or leave it for the next craft time.
Next time I would make way more kits to be sure we had extras for the YW and some for the adults to each have one as well. I guess those insights come after you have experienced being in charge of camp crafts. Over all, I loved my experience doing Crafts at YW Camp!
