One Stop Decoration Shop: Oriental Trading

So if there's one thing you need to be as a Day Camp Director...that's thrify. Quickly, you'll learn how there is never enough money for what you need to do, especially if you are a camp where you have a low camper registration fee or if you give out scholarships or bursaries to low income families (like we do).

So, since I know how important it is to be thrifty, I thought I'd share some of my tricks for saving money when it comes to decorating. You want your decorations to be epic but you want your budget on them to stay low....

Well I found this great website a while ago orientaltrading.com and they are the perfect one stop decoration shop for you! Their prices are great and they seem to have everything you could think of. Not only are they good for decorations but they are great for craft supplies and any other camp thing you need. This isn't an advertisement...it's me just honestly excited to share this gem with you.

I have ordered with them tons of times and I've loved my experience with them every time. On their website you can see customer review and ratings for each item, so you know exactly what you are getting and they have a great return policy if something you buy doesn't work or if you don't end up using it - and that's another way to save money (return it if you don't use it).

But back to decorations....

On their website they have a party themes and events section where you can find all your party essentials from party supplies and favours, tableware, decorations and even candy.

If you are looking for decorations they have everything from hanging decorations, wall decorations, and even banners. And a lot of their banners can come in pre designed ones or you can customize them!

When you are shopping for your decorations you can shop by category (party supplies and favours, party tableware or personalized products), shop by occasion and event (birthday party, baby shower, wedding, or popular occasions), or you can shop by theme.

They have tons of different themes too. Like: pirates, sports, western, animal, fiesta, luau, princess, bugs and butterflies, dinosaurs, monkeys, movie awards, safari, and MUCH MORE!

Not to mention, that they usually have some of the popular VBS or Sunday School themes if you are from a christian day camp or VBS. Like this year they have the Panda theme and the New York theme.

So head over to their site and enjoy their help and wonderful products.

Yours.

A very happy and productive feeling ditzy day camp director.

Theme Signs

So this week I've been crazy busy planning for camp, and staff training, and decorations and everything else there is to do but I wanted to continue posting some helpful day camp hints. So this week I thought I'd help with some decorating.

A cheep but great way to add to your overall decor, is room signs. You can either create them by hand (if your creative) or you can make them on your computer. I made mine on the computer...just because it was easier and quicker.

It's a great way to help people know what rooms are for what, add to your decorations, and let kids know which rooms they shouldn't go in. Also, it can be super fun to have cool names that are theme related to your theme for each room. Way cooler then craft room or chapel.

So here are our Beach Bash themed signs...enjoy.

Forever,

The Ditzy Day Camp Director

For our library, where the kids can just sit back, relax and read a book.

For the center of all activity, the gym, we called it the Marina.

Every Friday we hold a movie, so we decided to call it the drive in. I found this cute picture on google.

The Cook Out is our kitchen...the hub of snack making and baking time.

Instead of having a craft and activity room, we called it the sand castle.

Our staff room is known as the life guard station, because no swimmers (kids) can come in.

Our chapel is known as the Beach.

The lunch room...the Wave Cafe.

And the restricted rooms are known as 'No Life Guard on Duty' areas.

I'd love to see what signs and room names you come up with!

T-Shirt Tie Dye

So I've been posting about t-shirts for the past few days and I thought I'd give you one more fun idea to make unique camper shirts - tie dye.

Yep, I said it...tie dye. As funny as it sounds, tie dye looks awesome for camper shirts and it's super fun and easy.

Why not just get plain white shirts with black printing for all your campers...trust me it will save you a ton of money! Then let the kids have a tie dye party!

I saw one camp last summer who had done this and it was an awesome idea! Firstly their kids looked incredibly adorable and they stood out like crazy! No need to fight against other camps who all have the same colour shirts as you...now you can be unique and have fun doing it.

The kids have a blast making their own shirt and they each get to be different!

Plus this works for any age!

So have fun my hippie day camp directors. Make camp shirts or just do some tie dye arts and crafts this summer.

Yours,

The hippie ditzy day camp director ME

T-Shirts with Custom Ink

So in my last post about t-shirts I mentioned this awesome site that we created our t-shirts with...customink.com. I really adore this site, so I had to share it with you! It's so super easy to use and will definetly make your t-shirt buying experience soooo much easier. Plus the people at custom ink are amazing, super helpful and friendly. It seems like they really love their jobs and that definitely makes the t-shirt buying and designing process so much easier!

So I figured in this post I could walk you through the process of designing and buying your t-shirts with customink.com. Now...just so you know this isn't an advertisement .... this is simply a company I really like and wanted to share.

So the first thing you need to do is make sure you are on the right part of the website. If you are from the USA you can go to the regular site customink.com. If you are from Canada go to the Canadian section at http://www.customink.com/canada/. All other countries can go through customink.com.

So follow these steps to make beautiful, professional looking gear. You select the product and design it. Then the custom ink crew comes into the picture touches up anything, processes your order and sends it to you just the way you want it!

Click the orange 'get started' button and you will be taken to the product catalog. Here you can choose from a variety of products from t-shirts, to sweats, to hats, to other giveaway items. Click the product that you'd like to customize...for this sample I've chosen t-shirts.

Once you click on the product you'd like you will be directed to pick the type you'd like. In the t-shirt category you pick what kind of shirt you'd like. For camper shirts I'd go with Gildan because it's the cheapest but pick whichever kind you'd like. Once you click on the orange 'pick a colour' button you will be take to a place where you choose your colour.

Here, you will see all the colour options you can get in that t-shirt style. Notice that some of the colours are only available in orders of 6 or more shirts. Since you are creating a camp shirt this shouldn't be a problem. So go ahead pick your favourite colour - don't worry you can change this later if you change your mind.

After picking the colour you will be directed to the customink.com customizer section. Note: I'm not sure if it's actually called the customizer but I really like that word so I dub it that. Anywho, in the customizer you can add text, change the colour of the shirt, add images, add names, design the back, save, and get a quote. Honestly, it's super easy to use so don't get overwhelmed.

In the customizer (which I just realized is called the lab - but I still want to call it the customizer) you can do so many things. On the left hand side you will see the 'get started' section. I decided to start by adding some text.

Just enter the text you want on the shirt into the box and click 'update'. Now you can change the font, change the size, the text colour, shape and much more.

So once you find the font, colour, shape etc. that you'd like you can click the text and drag it to the perfect spot on the shirt. Yep, it's that's easy.

You can even rotate the text so it doesn't lie straight. This is a great effect to add some extra emphasis.

Now that you're done adding text you might want to add some images or pictures. Custom Ink has tons of pictures and images you can use. Search their huge inventory till you find something you like. Click the image you'd like and it will add it to your shirt. Then you can change the colour and size of it. Drag the image to where you want it on the shirt. Yep, it's that easy!

Now if you don't find any images on Custom Ink that you'd like or you have another image or camp logo that you'd like to add to your shirt you can always upload your own image. I love this function because then you can really make it your own. We did this with our shirts and they turned out great!

After uploading your image you're going to have to do colour selection. Try to pick the colours that are in your image. Don't worry if they aren't perfect...the custom ink crew will help you with that later. The reason you have to pick your colours is so that you can get a more accurate price quote later.

Upload as many pictures as you like, resize them, and drag them where you want them. Yep, it's that easy!

Then when you are done, in the bottom left click quote. Put in the number of shirts you'd like and what size and the customizer will generate a quote for you. Note: that it will provide the quote in a per shirt price and overall price. Also the more shirts you order the lower the price will be. Also note: this is just a quote...it might go up or down after the custom inkers look at it.

Custom Ink also has other cool functions. Like personalized names and numbers. What a cool idea for a baseball team or counsellor names or whatever else your heart desires.

You can also ask them to do half your design in a different colour t-shirt. we did this for our camp so that we could have the camper shirts in one colour and the counsellor shirts in another colour.

One of the other cool functions they have is design ideas. Yep! They have design ideas for a variety of different t-shirt reasons. Not so creative? Their design ideas are perfect for creating professional looking but super easy to make shirts. At the top of the screen just pick ideas and you will be taken to a design idea section where you can browse over a 100 something ideas (just made up that number...but there are a lot of ideas). Find the shirt you like...click on it...change the colour...change the camp name...change whatever your hear desires...or keep it the same...and you've got an awesome looking shirt in no time!

With such an easy website and customizer and design ideas, how can you go wrong? YOU CAN'T! So many of my friends and colleges have used this site and thought it was wonderful....try it out...it's free to fiddle around on...and when you find the shirt you love it's as easy as can be.

So my day camp directors...enjoy fiddling and let me know if you have any questions. I'll post pictures of our shirts as soon as they come. Ours are suppose to get here on Friday. Yay!

Toodle Do,

Ditzy Day Camp Director

Promotion: Phone Calls

So this is going to be a short post but I just wanted to give you another idea for promotion: phone calls. Yep, I'm going old school and pulling out the phones.

As lame as it sounds giving each camper family from last year a call to let them know you're hoping they are going to come to camp and answering any questions they might have is a great way to show you care, remind them that you're there and promote for camp.

It's super easy for parents to get busy and forget to register their kids for camp so a friendly call can be just the thing they need to get that thing crossed off their to do list. So call them up and chat up camp. Just remember to be friendly, and you never know...this might help you register some more kids for camp.

Happy calling...

Yours truly the Ditzy Day Camp Director

Camp T-Shirts

So one thing I highly suggest you do for you day camp is to get t-shirts. Not only is it a good take away for the kids at the end of the week it's super helpful in other ways too!

T-Shirts are a great promotional tool. When kids wear them throughout the year (which they will - because they love camp so much) they'll tell their friends about camp and then their friends will want to come to camp and we all know word of mouth is the greatest promotional tool.

Camp shirts are also a protection thing. On off site trips shirts help you see all your campers easier and it helps them see you. You have no idea how crazy the zoo, the science center, the water park etc can be unless you've been there. And from one Ditzy Day Camp Director to another having shirts will make your life 100x easier.

Camp shirts also show the parents you care....it's a tangible way to see the money they pay for camp in action.

So how do you go about making these shirts? Well, I'm glad you asked! I've done camp shirts in three different ways. Although this post may be long, I hope it might be helpful in helping you get the best camp shirts ever!

1. So the cheapest and probably easiest way to have camp shirts if you have a small camp is iron ons. Go to Walmart or Staples or some office supply store and they probably have Iron On sheets. You create the design on your computer, print it off on the sheet, and then iron on the image to the shirt. Benefits: it's cheaper, easier, and completely in your control. Downfalls: it looks cheeper, it's a lot of work if you have a large camp (anything 20 plus), and the iron on's don't usually last as long.

2. So here is the second T-Shirt solution I've tried...find someone in your church or a friend who does graphic design and have them design the shirt, and then send it to one of the 1000 t-shirt companies out there to have them print them off. Now if you know someone who is a designer it will look amazing and they probably have photo shop and can do it in photo shop and save it like that - which is most likely the format the printers want it on. If you don't have experience and try to do it...it usually doesn't end up looking that professional and can take a lot of your time. Benefits: it looks better then iron ons, you have a designer who will hopefully do a good job, and you have a t-shirt company that makes them for you and they probably have more selection. Downfalls: If you don't have a designer this option is harder and you don't get to see what the shirt looks like until it's done.

3. And although both of the options above are great solutions this is by far the greatest solution I've found to the Camp T-Shirt dilemma.... customink.com. Custom ink is this great website/company where you design the t-shirts online on their custom designer, send it to them and they print it off. The outcome always looks great! Benefits: it looks great, it's super easy to use, they are dependable (myself and many of my friends have used it with great results), they are helpful and friendly, and you get to see the t-shirts before they come. Downfalls: I actually can't think of any. :)

So tomorrow I'll post a how to on customink.com/canada or customink.com.

Staying Organized: To Do List

One of the biggest problems for day camp directors and especially for this ditzy day camp director is staying organized. It's a hard thing to do! During the planning part of your job before camp starts it's fairly easy to keep things organized and to tidy up but as camp goes along it gets harder and harder to keep things straight. So I thought I'd add another section...staying organized.

So for the first staying organized post I thought I'd give you a hint what my biggest staying organized help is...'to do lists'. I have 'to do lists' everywhere - on the wall, on the fridge, on my mirror, in my phone...everywhere! 'To do lists' can be a great asset - if you use them.

Trust me fello ditzy day camp directors....it's an awesome tool. Use it to remind you of all the things you need to do.

First thing to do...

Yep...write it! You have to write down everything, and I mean EVERYTHING you need to get done.

It might be a really long list, but having it done will help you see what needs to get done. Also writing it down will help you not to forget something you need to do. It's hard to remember all the little things that need to get done if you don't have some kind of reminder telling you what to do.

Now to add the details. Your 'to do list' should include dates. Put down dates of when you are going to do it or when it needs to be done by. This will help you make sure you do priority things first. If you are making a nice one on your computer you could list them according to priority. (On mine I put the due date).

The second thing you should include on your 'to do list' is who is responsible for doing it. If you are the only one doing everything (I'm sorry) but there is no need for you to put down whose doing it...because it's you. But if you are like me and you have a team or an assistant, it's super helpful to include whose responsible for it so that everyone knows what they need to be doing.

The Camp Senda 'to do list' has T's, D's and B's on it. T's for when its my job (Tori), D's for when it's David's job (he's the assistant director) and B's for when we are both going to be doing it.

And don't forget, my favourite part of 'to do lists', crossing things off.

Honestly, crossing things off the list can be so satisfying! It's not only nice to see that things are getting done but it's an instant 'high five you got something done' feeling.

So we did our 'to do list' on a huge piece of cardboard in our office because we thought it would be a helpful reminder like this. But you don't have to do your 'to do list' like this...you could use post it notes, a typed computer version, a day planner, etc. Use whatever works best for you and helps you stay the most organized. :)

So here's to all the 'to do lists' and things we need to get done....

Another day in the life of....

The Ditzy Day Camp Director

Promotion: OLD SCHOOL Sandwich Board

So, like I said earlier, promotion is a key element of any day camp director's job. It's super important to tell people who you are and where you are.

And although there are many super high tech methods of advertising and promoting your camp there is a simpler, cheaper method that is a nice addition to your promotional program - the Sandwich Board. Yep, I said it! Two pieces of wood stuck together with details about your camp. And no, you don't have to have someone wear it .... you can just have it sitting on the corner of your block. It's great for the cars driving by to know that there is a day camp in that area and if you are in a high trafficked area that sign can get a lot of looks. It's really just one more reminder that your camp is there.

NOTE: I definitely don't suggest that this is your only promotional tool. The sandwich board should for sure be done in conjunction with other tools!

Now to having the right kind of sandwich board. This year I went into storage to pull out the board they've been using for years, and this is what I found....

Gross isn't it? It's boring. It's blah. There is nothing eye catching about it...let's be honest it stinks. Now the guys around here thought it looked fine and I should just put it up...but being the awesome ditzy day camp director that I am I knew that there was something I could do to brighten this thing up.

So pull off all the stickers, clean it off, give it a fresh coat of paint, cut out some stencils, add some spray paint and some fresh stickers and what you're left with is....

Now doesn't that look 100% better! I love what we ended up with, and I think it looks great. Adding colour helps to make it more eye catching. I think we will get a lot more looks now.

So I hope you can find someone who can hinge together two boards for you and then add some bling and you'll have yourself a delightfully 'old school' but new sandwich board.

The Ditzy Day Camp Director

Promotion: Come Back Letter

So, one of the biggest tasks you'll need to do as a day camp director is promotion. Over the next few days I'm going to post some ideas on how you can promote your camp.

One of the first things you can do is send out a come back letter to all of the campers and families from last year. A come back letter can remind them about all the fun they had last year and encourage them to get their registrations in early.

In our come back letter we like to include:

• A letter to the parents/guardians with details the will need to know for camp,
• a letter to the child getting them excited for this year,
• registration forms,
• and any flyers you have.

Here are some ideas for the parent letter...note that I can't post the whole thing because the pictures of the children can only be used for promotional reasons, but I hope you still get an idea of what it can look like.

The kids letter is a welcome addition because it gets the children excited for camp, shows the parents you care, and makes them a part of the process. Here is our kid's letter, minus the photos...

Here are some helpful hints for the come back letter:

• Try to make it as personal as possible
• Give all pertinent information
• The kids letter should explain all the fun things you are going to do this summer
• Don't forget contact information on the parent's letter
• Include pictures of the campers if possible, it helps spark memories from last year
• Make it colourful, even if it cost more money - it's totally worth it! It makes the letters look amazing and shows the effort you put behind it.
• If you are printing off a lot of colour copies for your letter, go to Staples or another printing place and have them do it for you...the quality will be better, it's easier on you, and it will save you money in the long run rather then buying ink for your printer.
• If you are putting any colour on the page it cost the same rather you put a little or a lot, you might as well make the whole thing colourful if you do it.
• Include enough registration forms for every child in the family.
• Go to the post office to weigh the envelopes, so you make sure you have the right postage on it.
• Include a return address on the letter so you know how many didn't get to their location, and it's another opportunity for the parents to see your address.

Anyways...I hope this helps. I know it helps bring in a lot of registrations for our camp. Let me know if you have any questions.

The Ditzy Day Camp Director (HEY! That's me!)