Thursday, October 22, 2015

Shoe Box Christmas Tree

Our church has a large foyer with floor to ceiling windows. Every year before National Collection Week for Operation Christmas Child, we build two Christmas trees out of shoe boxes. We put an OCC brochure in each one and then our members can take the shoe boxes they want to fill. It is fairly easy to re-make the tree as the boxes disappear, until a large portion of them are gone. We also put a tree in our Welcome Center, as many people enter the church there. This helps us to promote Operation Christmas Child in a visual way and makes it easy for our people to pick up their empty boxes.



 I don't know where we originally got this diagram/instructions to build the trees but I'm passing it on to you. It takes 141 boxes to build each tree. We are a mid-sized church and we collect over 2000 filled shoeboxes each year for OCC. 
Here are the directions that we use each year. Hope it helps you.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Mix It Up

I joined Annie's monthly club for card making & have gotten my first kit. I made some of the things as directed but then, I decided to use up some of the other things I have sitting around my craft room with the club kit. Here is one that I did.
Materials needed:
Flower pot die cut, papers & brads from Annie's Oct. club kit
Silk flowers from any store
Birthday greeting stamp
5 petal punch-SU!
Wild Wasabi card stock 4 1/4 x 5 1/2"
Tangerine Tango ink pad

The Annie's kit had the flower pot shaped card that folded over. I cut it in half and used it on double the cards. The flowers are a simple matter of layering paper and silk flowers and placing a brad through the middle. Some of these were punch outs from the kit and some were cut from left over paper in the kit and my SU punches.
A really simple card to make and a great way to use up some of your extras.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Scrap Paper Packs

In many countries in the world, they put great value on paper because they do not have as much of it available as we do here in the US, especially in the poorer families. Since I'm a scrapbooker and card maker, I usually have far more scrap paper than I ever use. From time to time, I will take handfuls out of my stash and give it to my grandchildren and great grandchildren to play with. I decided that this might be a great thing to go in some of my shoeboxes so I made felt pouches to put the paper in.


When you buy felt by the piece, it is usually about 9 x 12". You can make to pouches with each piece.
Cut a piece of felt in half lengthwise so that it now measures 4 1/2 x 12."
Fold one end up 4" and sew a narrow seam on each side.

The top will fold down to about 3 1/2."
Using scrap pieces of felt, cut out some shapes, such as hearts and stars. I cut them on my Big Shot with my Sizzix dies but if you don't have this, you can use any pattern to cut shapes. With the top open, sew shapes on to the outside top.

You can also use silk flowers, ribbons, beads, etc to decorate the top flap of the pouch.
Now go through your scrap pile and cut squares or rectangles out of the larger pieces. I cut most of the pieces to be 3 1/2 x 4" so that they will fit easily into the pouch.


Since I use my leftover scrapbook papers, they are often a mix of colors and patterns. The back side of the paper can vary.
 It's not unusual for the back side to be blank. Sometimes it will have writing about the paper on it. Some scrapbook papers are double sided and will have colors and patterns on each side. I think that any of this scrap paper will be great. The children can use the paper in whatever way they want. They can use the blank sides to write on or be creative and make things out of the colored, patterned sides. I think this will just be a fun item to go in the middle and older kids boxes. When the paper is gone, then they can use the pouch to put crayons or other items in.