Hey all!! Long time, no blogging!! The past couple of years (oops!) have been busy!!
This past Christmas, we joined the #Lighttheworld initiative and decided on fun thing we could do as a family to bless and serve others is to do Samaritans Purse: Operation Christmas Child. If you don't know what that is, its a service opportunity that allows you to bless other children with a useful, fun gift at Christmas time. My boys donated their money last year and made two shoe boxes. This year, we are hoping to do a lot more!!
So I figures I would begin now! I went on the Operation Christmas Child Pinterest board and started looking for ideas and they had TONS of DIY crafts and projects you could do on the cheap!
1: Dollar Tree Barrettes
I got these barrettes for a dollar a pack and added small felt flowers with a hot glue gun! I keep all my felt scraps from my projects so these only cost me what I bought the barrettes for!!
2. Play dough set and Fake Food set
My local K-Mart is going out of business :( and they had a sale on toys! I got the tube of play dough that contains 6 individual tubs and 16 cookie cutters, for $3.50!! I can split that up over 6 different boxes making it around 50 cents a box for the play dough and cookie cutters!!
The tube of fake food was also $3.50! There are 80 pieces in the tube!! I'm not sure how I'm going to split them up but if I gave 10 children 8 pieces, that's 35 cents a box!!
3. Homemade crayons
This is something I did for free, since I already had the busted crayons! I had a good many!! You just rip the papers off the crayons. I used cupcake liners left over from a party and lined my muffin pan with them. After I lined the pan, I put broken pieces of crayons into each muffin cup. I put them in a 250 degree oven for 10-15 (depending on the thickness). I then pull them carefully out of the oven and let cool. They peeled easily out of the liners!! Just a side note, let your kids peel the papers off for you!! That part can take FOREVER!!!
4. Clothespin People
This was also something else I did for free!! My momma gave me these clothespins years ago and I never knew what to do with them! Then I saw this idea and just painted the little people on them!! I made over 20 of these!! They are a little time consuming, but totally worth the cuteness and the fact that they are FREE!
5. Mrs. and Mr. Potato Head Felt Cutouts
These only cost me $1 to make! Once again I had left over felt pieces and used them to make all the removable pieces. I did buy 4 sheets of brown felt at Wal-Mart for 23 cents a piece. I made eight and two potato heads fit on one sheet! So it was super inexpensive!
6. Felt masks
These were super fun to make! I found a tutorial on Pinterest and made these! I made six of these and two fit on a sheet so it was less than 75 cents for these!! I still need to add elastic though but I think these are flippin' cute!
7. Felt Play Sets
These are very cool because they are two sided! I spent $1 on these as well. I bought whole sheets of felt and cut them in half. Then I made one "scene" on one side and flipped it to make another scene! My youngest loved them and played as I made!
I'm super glad I found all these ideas and was able to create them for next to nothing!! I'll be able to create more boxes because the cost is so minimal!!! Be creative and you can bless so many lives!!
Happy Day All!!!!
Naomi
