Sunday Share

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving with family, friends, and time to thank God for the blessings He has given you. I am so thankful for my family and friends today. My sweet husband put up with me being basically gone from 8-6 every day from Nov. 18-25 as I worked the Operation Christmas Child National Collection Week at our Mid-Texas area collection center here in Temple, TX. I am so excited to tell you that we collected 12,025 shoe boxes from 5 Central Texas counties to go to children around the world. Every shoe box represents a child who will have the opportunity to hear and learn how Jesus Christ died for our sins and lives in heaven with  the Father and in our hearts every day.
Here are some pictures of our week. Hope you enjoy them. No, I'm not in any of them. I'm the one behind the camera!

 Here's what our room looked like before we got started.

 This is Maye and Lanita getting ready to set things up for our packing party which lasted for 4 of the days.

 Cecelia is dumping candy into a tub to get it ready to be bagged for the shoe boxes.

Monday, Nov. 18. The first day of Collection Week and the first day of our church's packing party. The green and red go boxes on the left & in the back are folded and ready to be packed. The boxes on the right are the ones that have already come in from members and from other churches. The center shows some of the items that we have ready for our volunteers to pack shoe boxes. Our church collects things all year round for our packing party. Immanuel Baptist packing party did 1500 shoe boxes plus the boxes brought in by members who didn't come to the packing party.

 Charles and John did a lot of work putting the shoe boxes in cartons and recording the numbers in each box.

 Two of our lovely volunteers packing shoe boxes.

 Mary looks over the color books to see which one she wants to put in her shoe box.

 We had lots of teddy bears for shoe boxes! Edna is taking all the plastic rings and tags off of each one of them.

 Cathy & Allen are processing our boxes. We had to make sure that every box had a boy/girl label and 2 strong rubber bands to hold them closed.

 At one point during the week, we had shoe boxes everywhere! We had to keep the church groups separate in order to record the numbers accurately. Here there are shoe boxes stacked in the foyer in 4 different places while the volunteers in our room processed the boxes. One gentleman said not to worry about "how many boxes there are. God knows the numbers." That is certainly true but the US government likes to know exactly what non-profits are doing. Therefore, all the numbers have to match!

Milie, from Fellowship Baptist in Morgan's Point, brought her churches shoe boxes in. Like I said above, we had people bring shoe boxes from all over Central Texas to our collection center.
All of these boxes will go to a regional processing center where they will be checked to be sure there are no breakables, liquids, or war toys. Then they will be sent to poor children in over 130 countries around the world. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Note card/pad

These are note pads that I made to go in a packet for our ladies that will be going to the fall Women of Faith conference in Dallas this year. This is 4 of them. I made a total of 36 for the ladies to each have one.

Materials:
Patterned paper at least 8 1/2 x 11", one sheet for each note pad you plan to make
Framelits Labels Collection dies (#125598)
Trust God stamp set (#126702)
Every Little Bit stamp set (#120558)
Solid cardstock, color of your choice
Ink pad, color of your choice
Magnetic tape

For the title on the front cover, I typed the theme and theme scripture on my computer and used a computer graphic from Print Shop. I sized it to fit in a space 1 1/2 x 2." I dulipicated this design 12 times on my paper. Then I printed it out and cut it with my Framelits Labels die and my Big Shot. I cut the next larger size of the Framelits Labels die out of the solid cardstock. I used a purple because that is the color the church group has chosen for their conference t-shirt. The theme and scripture was chosen by the Women of Faith organization.

After cutting out the pattern here I scored, folded and glued the tab to form a pocket on the inside.

I stamped the verse from the Trust God stamp set in Rich Razzleberry ink on the inside.

I cut 2 small piece of magnetic tape and placed on the inside as shown. This provides a closure for the note card.

I slipped a hand made note pad measuring 3 1/4 x 4 3/4" in the pocket of each card. The note pad is simple to make. If you want lined paper, use notebook paper. If you want plain paper, use type or computer paper. I put 12 sheets on each pad but the number of sheets on the pad is up to you. I stamped a cute stamp in different spots (top, bottom, left, right) on the note papers.

To make the note pads stick together, I cut a piece of white cardstock the same size as the note paper, 3 1/4 x 4 3/4." I placed the card stock on the bottom of my 12 sheets and stacked several of them together. Be sure to tamp the end and side down so that the pads will be even.

When there are several pads stacked together (one on top of the other), place a heavy book or other heavy items that will cover the entire pad on top of the stack. You might want to place a piece of waxed paper between the pads and the book to protect the book.

Pour about an inch circle of Elmer's glue on a plate. Use an old paintbrush or sponge brush to dip into the glue. Paint the glue onto the top end (one end only) of the stack of note pads, covering completely. Allow 1 -2 hours for the glue to dry before you remove the heavy weight. After they have dried, gently peel each pad from the others in the stack behind each piece of cardstock.

You are ready to put the note pad in the pocket of the note card. These are simple & fun to make and will make a cute add on to a gift or gift packet for friends, teachers, etc.

Matchbox Party Favors

With my demonination's local office, I helped to organize an event for the minister' wives in our area that is being held today. One of the things that I made for them was a little party favor box. These boxes can be made for any kind of special event, birthday parties, anniversaries, weddings, and on and on. I put M&Ms in mine but you can put anything that fits your event, even confetti or rice. Think our much fun the guests would have throwing the rice from these little boxes at the newlywed couple as they leave a wedding. People always say how easy these type of things are but then you have to figure it all out. I don't know about you, but sometimes it takes me a little bit to get it all figured out so I'm going to show you how to do these today. You will need a Big Shot Die Cut machine (#113439), the extended cutting pads(#113478) and the Bigz XL Matchbox die(#114890). I've found that you can make one complete matchbox with one 12x12" sheet of patterned paper. For this one I used the Rich Razzleberry DSP from the Brights Collection DSP Patterns Stack (#117155). Since I had to make so many, I also used some old patterned papers that I've had around for years. A double sided paper works best. Cut the paper in half so it's 6x12."

1. The matchbox die cut is just about a 1/2" longer than the 12" paper so you will want to position the paper so that one sheet is on the top part of the die and the other sheet covers the bottom part of the die. You will have enough paper left over to use for 2 card fronts! Build your die sandwich like you would for an original die. You will have paper sticking out both ends. Run your sandwich through your Big Shot machine.

2. After you pop the pieces out (actually, they just fall out), you will want to creased all the score lines with your bone folder(#102300).

3. To make the outside of the matchbox, after the edges are creased, just apply your adhesive to the shorter edge and fold them together.

If you have a stiped paper, like I did with one side of my patterned paper, it is more difficult to see the score lines. They seem to blend in with the lines, so be aware of that. Now, you are ready to make the inside part of the matchbox. After you've folded all your score lines, fold it again to see exactly how it goes together, including the little diagonal lines that make the folded part under the ends.

4. I placed adhesive on the top folds of each side. Fold the long sides in first. Then fold in the ends. You might need to use your fingernail to crease the corners on the inside after it's together. It will stay together without adhesive but I just like the extra security the adhesive gives. Now it's time to put the matchbox together.

5. Now it's time to decorate the outside. When you ran your paper through the Big Shot, it also cut out some labels that you can use to decorate. If you used double-sided paper, you can turn them over. I stamped "thank you" on the smallest of my tags from Teeny Tiny Wishes (#115370). I then wrapped a strip of organdy ribbon from the Everyday Enchantment Ribbon and Brad Pack(#127279) and tied a bow. This ribbon & brad pack is currently free with a $50 purchase. You can find it in the Sale-a-Bration catalog until March 31.