Using the Old to Make New

Ok, so I'm a little OCD when it comes to OCC, Operation Christmas Child. My hubby tells me that these days I eat, sleep, and breathe OCC and he's right. I'm constantly combing through Pinterest looking for ideas of things I can make for my shoeboxes. When I go in any store, I'm looking to see if there is something on clearance or on sale that I can buy for my shoeboxes. After Valentine, when items were 50%  and 75% off, I bought 1500 suckers to go in shoeboxes, both my personal ones and the ones at the packing party we will do at church. I know National Collection Week is not until the week before Thanksgiving but suckers are things that will last a long time.

So I saw some cute felt dress up dolls that I thought would be perfect for my shoeboxes. I looked as several sites to try to find some free patterns. I finally found one but the patterns were so small that my hands would curl up permanently if I tried to cut them out. Then it hit me! I still have scads of the old Sizzix dies that I used to use with my Sizzix machine. And they will work in my newer Big Shot machine. I have the doll body, dresses, overalls, bath time, shoes, and some where hidden around here, I know I still have a hair die. These are perfect for making the felt dress up dolls for shoe boxes.

Here is the doll body. I actually used adhesive backed felt for this and mounted it on card stock before I cut it in the machine. This will give it a bit more weight and should make it easier to play with. I cut out all different colors of clothes to go with it. I was trying to find a good way to package this. One site that I read suggested the boxes from baby wipes but I don't use that many wipes. No baby in this house any more! I decided to use the jewel cases from cd's or dvd's. I bought some at Wal-Mart that I will be taking back. They are the slim ones and do NOT work for this. I had some older ones at home that I have acrylic stamps in. I had taken the cd holder part out and just used the plastic case. Works great for that but it also works great for these felt dolls. I will be looking for some more of these thick ones in days to come to put my stamps back in them! lol

I used red double sided sticky tape on the back of a piece of felt cut to fit and adhered it to the back side of the case. On the front side I put a picture of the dolls facing out so the children can see what is in the case. On the inside of the picture, I wrote a scripture. The clothes stick to the felt piece easily and can be taken off to put on the doll.

This is what the front looks like.

I also have the "Beary" dies of bears and clothes that SU had a couple of years ago. 

I cut these out too and packaged them the same way as the dolls.

These will be great in my shoeboxes and I think some little girls some where in the world will have a great time playing with them.

It is wonderful the way Operation Christmas Child delivers these gifts children around the world who have nothing or very little. The most important thing to remember about OCC is that with each shoe box, there is the opportunity for the children to learn about the love of Jesus Christ. These shoe boxes open doors that otherwise, would not be opened. Think of every shoe box as a gospel opportunity!