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A Christmas Craft-A-Thon is a great outreach event for your small church women’s ministry. This is a friendly event your women will love to invite their family, friends, and neighbors to join the fun and get a jump start on homemade crafts and gifts.
Create DIY Gifts For Christmas
‘What is a Christmas Craft-A-Thon?’ This event is an evening of hands-on instructional teaching where women and their guests create a variety of Christmas crafts. Each guest leaves the event with several completed projects and, hopefully, the skills to reproduce these projects at their leisure for homemade gifts.
We call it a craft-a-thon because it is a full schedule of teaching, creating, and extras just for fun! This event requires guests to pay a fee that covers the cost of all the craft materials.
A Fantastic Outreach For Small Churches
This event is a fantastic outreach for a small church to host.
The Christmas Craft-A-Thon event accomplishes the following:
- Promotes connection and fellowship for the women in the church
- Gives an opportunity for your church women to invite friends, family, and neighbors to a church event in a fun environment
- Offers a time to help women create homemade Christmas gifts
- Encourages intergenerational connections
- Sets a great Kick-Off event for the holiday season
Looking for something fresh and new for the holiday season?
Check out the Blue Christmas Pack & the Advent Worship Pack!
Make Your Holiday Crafts In November
It’s best to host your event in early November.
- Gives your guests plenty of time to make more at home or with friends for future gifts.
- Tends to beat all the hectic scheduling that comes closer to Christmas.
- Gets everyone in the ‘mood’ in anticipation for the holidays to begin!
Block off a 2-3 hour window for this event.
Keep reading for a ‘to-do’ list so you will be organized and ready to welcome your guests with a smile! We also suggest where to find the projects to use for your Christmas Craft-A-Thon event. So grab a couple of friends to plan this event with you, and let’s get going!
If you like the sound of this event, check out these Christmas Ideas For Outreach And Connection for your small church.
First Things First
Do these three things before you fully start planning your event.
1. Choose your date and the maximum number of registrants you can take.
Choose the date of your event and establish your participant capacity. Calculate how many guests you can fit around the tables with room to work and move. This is why having an RSVP or pre-purchasing tickets is important.
2. Find your instructors.
Network with people in your church to see if someone (or more than one) can teach you how to make a craft. Ask if they have suggestions about which crafts to make.
Check with a local craft store and see what kinds of projects they have done in the past or if they can recommend any instructors or craft kits.
Ask your instructors how many people they are comfortable teaching at one time.
3. Decide which crafts you will make.
In your planning process, include your instructors’ ideas and input on the craft projects you choose for your craft-a-thon. They can offer knowledge and wisdom on project difficulty and project completion times.
Tips For Choosing Christmas Crafts
- Simple crafts are best. Participants won’t have time to do complex and multi-step projects.
- Ask the crafty women in your group; they are a great resource!
- To keep costs lower, look for recyclable projects and items on clearance. Check local discount stores for materials.
These Crafts Work Well For This Event
- Ornament crafts
- Decorative sign crafts
- Simple centerpieces
- Hanging crafts for the wall or door
Moving from the easiest craft to the most difficult one helps establish a good flow for the night.
It also encourages those who are not as ‘crafty’ to see they can do it and builds their confidence as they move on to the next project. It also helps if you have a late arrival who misses the first project; they can catch up quickly.
Team Work For Event Success!
Set up your small church for success; read 3 Core Values For a Successful Event before planning your event.
It’s a proven fact that getting others involved in your small church events is a win-win!
Creating a team as you enlist volunteers to help at an event does the following:
- Develops their skills, so in the future, maybe they can be the lead!
- Gives them buy-in as part of a ministry in your church.
- Demonstrates you are valuing their abilities and input.
- Makes everything a whole lot more fun!
Team Assignments For The Win!
- The ministry leader enlists someone to help create the schedule for the night. Include a short time for registration. Make a list of craft projects in the order you do them. Include beginning event announcements as well as closing announcements.
- One team member is in charge of refreshments.
- Another team member finds items for door prizes and makes entry slips to put on the greeting table.
- Promotional Point Person makes a flyer and posts it on social media and in the bulletin. This person helps get the word out and makes an RSVP system.
- Set Up Crew is responsible for setting up and covering the tables. They also decorate the refreshment area and sign-in area.
- Greeters at the door direct participants to the sign-in table.
- The Check-In/Registration Person takes money, collects tickets, and gives out name tags.
- Hostesses serve snacks, deliver beverages to people, and help to clean up throughout the night. For our event, we had 2 of our older women who felt they didn’t have the skills to make the crafts but wanted to be involved. They got in the spirit of things and donned their Santa hats for the event. To thank them for their help, we gave each a set of homemade crafts at the end of the night. They were thrilled!
- To Clean Up, ask each table to police their own area. Then, everyone can chip in to help clean up the other areas.
For A Successful Event, Prepare Early
Ask some women from your church to help you prepare for this event. Making your own craft ‘kits’ helps your night run smoothly and keeps your guests happy. Preparing early also gives you another opportunity to invite some of the older women in your church to get involved by assembling kits.
Encourage your senior adults to get involved. It inspires them and allows them to remain active. I learned about it in the blog post, Keep Your Senior Adults Connected & Engaged.
Package all the major components needed to complete each craft and put a number sticker on the bag or packaging. Put the individual bags for each project in their own box or section on a table, laid out and ready to grab when it’s time to work on that craft.
Hand out an 8 x 11 piece of paper and ask each woman to put their name on it. Then have them place it in the designated area where all finished projects are kept. They place their crafts on their paper instead of trying to carry them around from table to table as they work on other crafts.
*If there are choices of color or style, offer an equal number of each color and let people know it will be first come/first serve.
Don’t include items like scissors or wire cutters in your craft bags. Ask each participant to bring their own. Also, ask them to bring a hot glue gun, but have a few extras of these tools in case someone doesn’t have one or forgets theirs.
Provides These Items For Your Craft Event
Purchase these supplies if you don’t have them readily available or in ample amounts for your attendees. Include the purchase of these general supplies in the price of entry.
- Hot glue sticks
- Regular craft glue
- Paint & brushes (if needed)
- Small paper plates to place the glue guns on (so as not to burn the table)
- Power strips and extension cords
- Extra scissors
- Extra wire cutters
- Extra hot glue guns
Your Craft-A-Thon Day
Let’s Get Crafting! Set the mood with some fun Christmas music playing as your guests arrive.
Get everyone seated and explain the process for the evening. Participants will stay at the same table and grab a new craft when they are ready. Instructors are on hand and available to give general all group instructions and answer questions as needed.
Allow people to ‘graze’ at the refreshment table throughout the evening. This works well since everyone works on projects at a different pace. Encourage them to get a snack before starting a new project.
Give door prizes throughout the evening to keep things lively and fun. Save the biggest door prize for the end of the evening.
Instruct your guests to get only one project kit at a time. There will not be room at the table to have extra items in the way.
Once a project is complete, they place it in the designated craft area and then grab the next project.
Invite Your Guests To Your Next Small Church Holiday Event
Have fun and smile. Remember, it’s arts and crafts. Don’t expect or demand perfection. Everyone has their own style. Therefore, not every project will look alike, and that’s great!
Celebrate the creativity and fun by taking lots of photos to post to social media (with permission, of course). Take a great group photo at the end of the night!
In closing, take a moment to thank all your guests for coming. Close in prayer and invite your guests to take a card on the table with your church’s upcoming holiday event schedule. If you have a women’s group, invite them to come and continue the connection they made with new friends they met at this event.
Looking for something fresh and new for the holiday season?
Check out the Blue Christmas Pack & the Advent Worship Pack!
Remember To Thank Your Volunteers
Take the time to thank your volunteers and team members for all their help. You may find some great ideas to write notes to your volunteers in this article. It was written for VBS volunteers but could be used for any situation: A “Thank You” That Your VBS Volunteers Will Treasure. Ask your volunteers for their opinion of how things went, and pay attention to what they have to offer for highlights and ideas for the future. How To Get Honest Volunteer Feedback gives great tips.
Small Church Outreach Can Yield Big Benefits
Small church outreach events increase your connection with people in your community. They also encourage your church family as they start to build relationships with people who come to these events. Capitalizing on women’s interests in crafting combined with the holidays is the perfect time for an outreach!
Reach more people as you fine-tune and improve. Start small, and do what you can the first year. After your event, do an evaluation and then turn it into an annual event. Each year as you evaluate your event and learn how to improve the way you do it, you will see it reach more and more people. Step #2 in Ministry Team Building Strategies gives great team-building ideas.
Watch and see your own small church women step up to be in leadership roles! Let us know how it goes, and share some pictures in our Facebook community, Creative Solutions for Small Churches.
Read More:
4 Fun Mix & Match Elements To Create The Perfect Christmas Party
