Messy Sunday Craft - Opening Door, Message Centre

Coming up this summer we are holding a summer holiday club (or VBS) for local children at our church.  On the Sunday after the club we will be holding Messy Church and inviting all the families whose children came to the club.

I said I would come up with a craft.  My initial plan was to search through all my usual crafty websites and find something along the right lines for the theme of the morning.  I tried that but I could not find something suitable anywhere. So I came up with something myself.

The story for that Sunday is the story of Rhoda answering the door to peter but being so excited it was hi that she forgot to open the door.  We will be linking that to Revelation 3 and "Behold I stand at the door and knock."  So we wanted a craft with a door theme.  It needed to be reasonably easy but not be done in just 5 minutes either.  This is what I came up with.

You will need
sheets of printable card,
1 roll of chalkboard sticky back poster paper,

glue,
a craft knife and ruler

and pens or other means of decorating the front.
Also a piece of chalk.

I went onto an image search and found the doors I wanted to use.  I printed out the door onto the right hand side of a Landscape format piece of printable card.

Fold that in half to make a card with the door on the front.

Cut around the top, right hand side and bottom of the section you want to open.  We will probably complete the doors to this point before Messy Church so that we don't need to have craft knives hanging around.

Mark the right hand side of the door with the tip of a bone folder or similar to score and then fold the door back along the line.

Cut a piece of chalkboard paper that is bigger than the opening door but smaller than half the sheet of card, as below.

Peel the backing of the chalkboard paper and apply it inside the card.

The next step needs to be done carefully so that you don't get any glue on the back of the section of card you want to open.
Lay the card out with the chalkboard side up and glue around the opening in the are marked below . . .

Carefully fold the front over and press down all over to glue the two sides together.  If you have accidentally got any glue on the back of the door area, quickly but carefully open up just the door and use your finger to rub the glue until it just rubs away.

Decorate the front as you see fit.  I decided the panels were glass and drew in a curtain behind the door.

Next you need to condition the chalkboard paper just like any other chalkboard surface.  Take a piece of chalk and using the side rub it all over the exposed chalkboard surface.

Then take a piece of kitchen roll or other soft material and wipe away the excess chalk.

Then write your message inside, any time you like.

I want to get some stick on picture hangers like these to pop on the back of each one so that there is an easy way of hanging them.

And there you have it, an opening door message centre.  I did think about putting a paper fastener through the door where the door knob should be but figured the prongs on the back of the fastener would damage the chalkboard surface underneath whenever it was closed.


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