Operation Christmas Child Week

This is the week to drop of shoeboxes that are packed with all sorts of fun stuff to be sent to some needy child. This is something that our kids have enjoyed doing for many years now. It is a really fun way to cause them to think about others and to really embrace giving. If you didn't plan to do so already I just wanted to mention the idea in case it would be something you could do this week. I think your family plus the child would be blessed by it.

  Here are some links that could be helpful:

Operation Christmas Child -Packing your shoebox

A Missionary's insight into what is good for boxes.

Another post with insight from distribution.

Posts from various years about our Operation Christmas Child Shoebox packing:

2009

2010 Bags for our boxes

2011 (Skirt and shirt tutorial)

2012

Clothespin dolls could be a fun addition to a box.

A Handmade Christmas Carnival Starting Soon!

  For several years now I have hosted a blog carnival on my blog called "A Handmade Christmas". I usually run it every week throughout the couple of months before Christmas.

   I debated doing it this year just because life is very busy and I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to getting this post done every week and also because last year not that many joined in to participate and that may be because there are so many other carnivals of various types out there and I didn't work all that hard to get people to participate. However there were reasons I did think it would be fun to do it again as well and in the end hosting it won out.

  One of the reasons I did decide to do it is because I have made several things already that I haven't yet blogged about that I think are neat handmade gift ideas and then there are a bunch of other things that I hope and plan to make and I don't mind having something to encourage me to get busy at them. I considered not having it a carnival but I do truly love seeing any ideas that you have so even if not a lot of people link up I will be happy to see whatever ideas are linked up!

 I do think it is truly fun to have a Christmas Celebration that is filled with handmade things -from gifts, to decorations, to food. Now I know sometimes we can go overboard with making things ourselves and in the process just stress ourselves out, I will try not to do that but as much as possible I am going to have a Handmade Christmas.

 

  Here are our house we do strive to keep things as simple as we can. We exchange gifts only between those of us that live in this house (no extended family). We do enjoy giving some other gifts (like packing shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child) but don't do any other exchanges. This takes a lot of stress off. We can give what we want but don't feel obligated or under pressure. Also with the gifts in our family we have a rule- everything has to fit in our Christmas Stocking. Those are some of the things that help us keep life simpler.

 

  We are planning on having a link-up starting next Tuesday and then going every Tuesday (Lord willing) until Christmas. I would be delighted if you would post about the things that you are making and would link up! I would very much appreciate it if you would grab my little logo picture and if you would link back to here.

 

Meanwhile, I thought it would be fun to share with you some of the things I have made in the past.  One of the ways I like to organize things online is by using Pinterest. It makes it so I can have everything filed according to subject and I can quickly look at the file and see a picture and a description of each link. I decided a practical way to share some of the tutorials and ideas that I have done in the past would be to pin them on my pinterest file along with all the others ideas I have pinned there from other sources and then just share the link to the different files with you. Even if you don't have pinterest you can still look at what I have on there. Each photo that you see has a link so that you can go to the source of that idea where most of the time there will be instructions on how to make it.

 

Here are the links to some of my different Pinterest Files:

Chocolate Nut Clusters

Gifts to make for Men

Fabric Flowers

 

Gifts to make for Ladies

A costume that I made for Aaron one year.

Gifts to make for Boys



Fairy Crown
 

Gifts to make for Girls

Poncho and Slippers

Gifts to make for Babies

An evergreen swag

Things to make for Christmas

 

I hope you will come back next week to join me for A Handmade Christmas!

 

I would love to hear your handmade gift ideas either in the comments or link some up in the weeks to come!

 

A Handmade Christmas Week 6 {Filling Shoeboxes}

Oh boy, am I ever running late at getting this posted today! Between trying to get extra cleaning done and a couple of trips to the hospital today to see a very dear friend I just didn't manage to get online very early.

This past week we had quite a lot of fun (and I admit some stress when I had 3 or 4 children all wanting my help with their particular project at the same time) working on things to send in our Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. Each child got to send a box to a child of their age and gender.

We enjoy doing these boxes as it gives us a chance to help out someone that has far less than we do and it is an opportunity to spread God's love across the world. I love seeing my children getting excited about sharing with some child they have never seen and I love hearing them talk about "My girl" or "My boy" as they plan what to send, write or just think about what they might be like.

My mom also got in on the action this year, first by finding us shoe boxes (we just don't buy new shoes very often around here) and then looking through her gift storage too and finding t-shirts for the two older children and some other things and then one morning last week we went over there so the kids could play with cousins and the boys could help Grandpa with the sawmill and Mom and I did some sewing for the boxes too.

 Here is Mara with her box and its contents. She decided to have a purple theme this year. It was very pretty - we hope the girl that gets it likes purple!

 Here are some of the things we made for it: A braided headband, a fabric flower clip and a jumper to go along with the cream t-shirt. Mara also made a purple notebook.

 Mara sent her one of her very pretty beaded flowers. She found the instructions online it is called a Russian Beaded Netted Flower (I think that link has the correct instructions). She has made quite a few of these- she has more patience than I do for intricate work like that.

 Mara's purple box all packed up.

Here is Jonathan with the stuff for his box:

 The stuff we made for it were: A tote bag, a notebook, a washcloth (out of some textured t-shirt fabric, double layered) and a jump rope.

 Here is Aaron and the stuff for his box:

 Things that we made to go in his box were: A tote bag, a little leather bag (totally made by Aaron) , a tic-tac-toe game and a washcloth. I also appliqued a car picture on the front of the plain white t-shirt that I had on hand.

 Here is the stuff for Megan's box: (She was away from home when I was taking pictures)

 Some of the things we made were: A braided headband, a beaded gecko, necklace and bracelet,

 An elastic waist skirt and a t-shirt that I decorated with lace and a fabric flower,

 A Fairy/Princess wand and a crown

 and some Paper dolls. With the paper dolls we printed two dolls, each with two outfits. Megan colored one set (something that she could do to contribute to the box) and the other one we left for the other girl to color. Here is the link to where you can print these off it you like.

My goal is to have my kids be as involved as possible in the creations of the gifts, here are things that Megan did to work on the box: She colored paper dolls, she painted the stick for the wand, she picked out the ribbons for the wand and sewed the flower in place, she glued jewels on the wand and the crown, she made a gecko and necklace, she wrote a letter, she packaged things up and decorated the box.

 We do try to keep our boxes quite economical - this year we only used things that we already had on hand or made with things that we had on hand. I do pick up things throughout the year (flashlights for example) when they are on sale so that I can have them in my gift cupboard and ready for things such as this. My opinion is that it doesn't require a lot of money to show someone you and Jesus love them.

Do you pack shoe boxes or do anything similar to this? Do you have any handmade ideas to share? I would love to hear them!

I would love to hear about any Christmas/gift projects that you have going on at your house. Please leave your ideas and links in the comments!

Have a Handmade Christmas ~ Week 3

 How are your Christmas projects coming along? What have you been making lately? Please link up your ideas!

  We have gotten started working on filling our boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Last year we did this for the first time and it was really fun! I let each of our kids pack a box for a child of their same gender and age range. We buy some things to put in it but we like to make quite a bit too. We have a bunch of ideas but not a lot done yet. Here is most of what we have made so far:

A couple of tie dyed t-shirts that the kids did with their Auntie Keren this summer. We also have a tie dyed hat that I forgot to put in the picture. Today we made a jump rope and a barrette.

The jump ropes are a lot of fun to make. They are quick and easy and then something else I love- I made them from recycled t-shirts and yet it looks nice and works well.

How I make them is to cut 1 inch wide strips from t-shirts (keep going round and round the t-shirt so it is long enough) and then get 3 of the same length and a bit longer than your desired jump rope. You can use all the same color or 3 different colors or any combination.

  Take your 3 strips and sew them together at one end. Then braid them tightly together all the way down to the other end. Then sew the other ends together.

Next I took a square of cloth and wrap it around the ends to make a handle and then sew it on (tucking in all the raw edges).
After that you are done. It really is a quick and easy project.

Next I decided I wanted tags for them. I was afraid that the kids possibly wouldn't know what it was so I wanted a picture too. I looked online but ended up drawing my own. I am not the best artist in the world but I think it gets the point across. I did include the picture in case you would like to print it off and use it for a tag if you make jump ropes. I then let the kids color the picture. I admit that I was tempted to color my own for this picture so that it would look "professional" but since I tend to get irritated at mothers who micro manage their kids craft projects (Sorry if I stepped on any toes, but for some reason it just bugs me when I am teaching a kid's class and we do a craft and the Mother basically does the craft for them so that it will turn out right!) so I used a picture that Aaron had quickly colored.

If you want to use my "lovely" drawing, just click on that picture and print it out. You may need to resize it to get the size you want.

 For making the barrette I used: A metal barrette base, white felt, blue ribbon and a flower that I had made from the lining of a skirt (see my post about it here.)

First I cut the felt to fit across the barrette and hot glued it on. Then I made the blue ribbon into a bow and glued it on. Then I glued the flower on top. So simple but yet pretty!

I plan on sharing more of our ideas to fill shoe boxes in the next week or so. Are you all filling shoe boxes for OCC? Are you putting handmade stuff in? I would love to hear your ideas!

Now it is your turn!

Please link up any ideas that you have for Handmade gifts, decorations, food and anything else that you have made that would work well for Christmas! (Please do not link up giveaways that aren't handmade or anything else that doesn't go along with the theme)

As you link up I would really appreciate it if you would link back to here, and also remember to link up a particular post not just your blog. I would also be very happy if you would be willing to use my Have a Handmade Christmas Logo as well.

A Handmade Christmas ~Week 4

Welcome back to A Handmade Christmas, after skipping Thanksgiving Week (So we had time to devote to one of my very favorite holidays) we are back for week 4. I hope you have had time to come up with some fun ideas to share and that you join right in!

This week I thought it would be fun to tell about a few odds and ends of gifts. To start with we decided to participate in Operation Christmas Child this year. It is something I had heard about in the past but never really checked into. This year we looked into it and after we watched all the videos on their site the kids and I thought it would be really neat to contribute to.

Please excuse the funny faces of my children~ they had the sun in their eyes!

We didn't think about it to far in advance so we had to work fast after that. We decided that each child could send a box to another child of the same gender and age group so we had 4 boxes to fill. We raided our gift cupboard and extra school supplies and then made a trip to dollar tree but beyond that we thought it would be fun to make some things for them. So here is a few of the things we did:

~ We had some hat blanks around and so we decided to decorate them. Here Aaron is modeling the one he made (with a little help from me) with a train on it.
Megan loved stitching a flower on to hers. I kind of had to guide each stitch but she thought it was a blast to pull it through.

Megan was so fun through out this whole process, she kept asking "Can I give this to my little girl?". I was afraid a few times that she thought we were making or buying something for her, but she didn't have any problems with giving it all away.

~ For the older girl (10-14) we decided to make an elastic waist skirt and a raglan sleeve shirt. I am really hoping that it is versatile enough in size to fit whoever receives it. Mara and I had fun working on this together. We are starting to be able to work as a team when sewing. I will do the cutting out and pinning and then I can hand it off to her to sew. I remember doing that a lot with my mom so it is fun to have that experience again, except with my daughter. Working together we were able to make the outfit in around an hour.

In the picture above she is also modeling the hat which she had stitched beads on in the shape of flowers.

~For the boys' boxes we also made small notebooks from colored paper we had on hand and then we used foam for the covers. Mara's box was a little bigger so we were able to fit in a regular notebook which we had decorated the front of.

~ The kids made Beaded Geckos and other little animals to fit in the box.

~ Instead of sending just plain washcloths I thought it would be fun to fold them into a fun shape. At Zakka Life I was able to find instructions for this cute little bird. They were super simple to do. Now I am just wondering if the kids who receive them will actually use the washcloth or will just have this funny little bird.

And off the subject of shoe boxes....
Another gift we had fun creating lately was this little baby quilt for a little niece of mine that is coming soon. I wanted to deliver it to my pregnant sister-in-law when we saw her over Thanksgiving. This is another project that Mara and I had fun doing together. With her help it went pretty fast. (And sorry Luann about the picture- she had just jumped out of bed at 4:30 in the morning to tell us goodbye when I took it- not very nice of me!)

I was inspired by this quilt over at Brown Paper Packages. Mine doesn't quite match up to hers though. She has a good tutorial for making one too.

Here are some other fun ideas that I would love to try:

• A Bean Bag chair (and use packing peanuts for the filler).
• This cute scrunchy scarf (which I think I could recycle t-shirts into)
• A simple photo collage.
  

Now it is your turn! Please join me and share your handmade ideas!

To link up~
~Write a post about anything you are doing that is handmade for Christmas. (Gifts, decorations, food, etc.).
~In that post please link back to here.
~Then using MckLinky, add your link to the list. Please make sure it is linking to your specific post (not just your blog).
~Then have fun following the links to see others' great ideas!

Also be sure and come back next week. I am hoping to work a lot on decorating this week and have some ideas I want to try and then share.

A Handmade Christmas Week 8 {Easy Skirts and a Shirt}

 How are you doing this morning! I am doing good. After a couple of days of not feeling so hot I feel so much better and that is always a great feeling. I am a little late getting this up (and I will come back even later to add the tutorial to this post) but I will blame that on not feeling good, playing games with my family last night and working on centerpieces for Thanksgiving instead. Someday I will be better organized and pre-post all my posts but so far that hasn't happened very often.

Anyway, here is something that I have been making:

 Elastic Waist Skirts and a reversible applique t-shirt. The outfit that Megan is modeling we sent in her Operation Christmas Child box and the skirt below is a gift for a friend. Mara also made a skirt like this for her OCC box but we failed to get a picture of it.

These skirts are so quick and easy to make and you can use whatever fabric you have on hand or can find for a good deal and they are a fun and practical gift.

Here is the Tutorial. I hope it works well for me to do it this way. Let me know if you have any problems reading it or understanding it. Thanks!

To make the skirt you will need to first choose fabric (you can make it all one color or have a couple types of fabric- I did it both way.)

To cut it out: I am going to give quidelines for you to follow so you can make it fit any size person and have it the fullness and length that you desire.

For the top layer: Measure the recipent of the skirt's hips. You need a strip of fabric (this can be one long piece or you can sew a few pieces together to make the strip long enough) that is the length of the hips plus at least 5 inches or up to doubling the hip measurement. Example Hips: 36 inches plus 5 inches = 41 inches. OR 36"=36"= 72" or anything in between. This strip of fabric should be as long (wide?) as the length you want your top layer plus 2 inches for making the elastic casing and seam allowance. 16 inches or around there would probably work well.

For the bottom layer: This strip should be about 1.5 or 2 times as long as the top strip to allow for good gathering. It could be a little less if you don't want it that full. You can work with what you have for fabric. The length of it again depends on how long you want the skirt to be. Have an inch of so extra for the seam and the hem.

Click on the pictures in order to see them larger.

Here is how I decorated the raglan sleeve t-shirt that I made:

I had fun making these tutorials using My Memories Suite which I am hosting a giveaway of right now. Feel free to go sign up!

Now, PLEASE SHARE YOUR IDEAS!

If you have a blog I would love it if you would share the link of your post, And for everybody I would love it if you would leave ideas in the comments.

TO LINK UP:
I can't wait to see what you make!

-Please link up a handmade idea that would work for a Christmas gift, decoration or for eating.

I have decided not to use the linky tool but rather if you would include your link in a comment or send it to me in an e-mail, I will then put the link to your blog post in this post. Thank you!

-Please make sure it is family friendly.

- Please link back to this blog. I would love it if you also would display my graphic either in your post or on your sidebar so that others can learn about and join this carnival too.

Check this out....

• Beautiful Batik Coasters made from Upcycled fabrics at Those Northern Skies.
  
  

If you missed my earlier Handmade Christmas weeks here they are:

• Week 1-A Fairy Princess Crown
• Week 2-Headbands
• Week 3-Carved Gifts
• Week 4- Fabric Flowers (and sign up for the giveaway!)
• Week 5- Knitted Mittens and Cross stitch.
• Week 6 - Kitchen Gifts (making scrubbies, dishcloths, hotpads and aprons)
• Week 7 - Mittens

What are we focusing on?

  

 

The busiest shopping day of the year is now over but the shopping season has just really begun. I have been doing quite a bit of thinking concerning shopping and things like that lately.

 

   My thinking got started because of my goal to not buy anything that we don't need this year which has caused me to realize just how little we really do need. Just how little everybody in our country needs. Most of us are abundantly and sometimes rather overwhelmingly blessed. We often have more stuff than we know what to do with. What is it then that prompts us to keep buying?

 

   My pondering continued after I caught a couple of ads on the radio one day while driving (I rarely listen to the radio or watch TV which causes me not to hear ads very often - for which I am thankful) and was disgusted to find that most of them had the theme of "What do you want?" "What will make you happy?". They spoke of coming into buy gifts for others but then dwelt on the idea of getting something for yourself that you really want since possibly nobody else did. Also mentioned was buying gifts for yourself while shopping for the others. The focus is all ME, ME, ME!

 

  And then comes the new tradition of doing all the "Black Friday" shopping on Thursday - THANKSGIVING DAY instead. Thanksgiving Day is probably our neatest holiday - one in which the focus is supposed to be on being Thankful for all that God has blessed us with as well as a wonderful time to spend with family. But now many have chosen to turn it into a time of focusing on what we want rather than what we are thankful for.

 

  It is very easy, I know, for us to get caught up in the consumerism of this time of year. If you get a newspaper (which we do) it comes packed with all sorts of ads. Ken was looking through the Black Friday ads this year and the kids decided to join him and pretty soon they were seeing all sorts of things that they "needed" - I mentioned that maybe we should just put those away and Ken was quick to agree saying "there just isn't anything in there that we really need". The ads are put there- in newspapers, catalogs, on TV, on the radio to make us want what they are trying to sell. When we expose ourselves to long or to often to them it is pretty easy to fall into their trap. Some of the things we do is to get rid of ads very promptly when they come into our home. We don't watch television very often nor listen to the radio very often - all of that helps us to have less exposure. We are also blessed to have a network of friends that aren't always focused on having the latest and greatest or great amounts of stuff so our kids rarely see excess consumerism being acted out right before their eyes either.

 

   Instead of focusing on the catalogs, etc. that are full of things that "we want" how about pouring over a Catalog from IDES or World Vision that offers things that you can buy (such as chickens, blankets, cooking pots, food, etc.) for those that really truly need something? This is a very fun way to teach children to focus on others rather than themselves. Packing shoeboxes to send through Operation Christmas Child has been another fun way to focus on others rather than on ourselves.

 

  If you do still want to exchange some gifts within your family (something we do enjoy), what about making handmade gifts - something that can provide an opportunity to work together to create something special for someone else. Another idea is to give gifts that actually do fulfill a need or to give a gift that is for an experience rather than "stuff". Hopefully something that will promote close relationships in your family. My goal is that in our home we can focus on relationships and how to improve them - rather than on stuff.

 

  These are just some thoughts that I have been having concerning consumerism, our culture and the Christmas season. I am working to have the right focus in our home - something that seems to me a bit of a balancing act at times. This is something that will vary from family to family and I certainly don't expect you to do everything the way that we do. I just hope that perhaps in sharing my thoughts it would encourage you too to step back and check out what your focus is and make sure that first of all your focus is on Jesus.

Have a Handmade Christmas ~Week 4

   Well the days are getting cooler, the harvesting is over and the election is over and it is now the perfect time for us to work on projects. We have been having fun filling up our shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. I thought I would tell you about a few more items that are going into ours. They would also work just fine for gifts over here too.

This year I thought it would be fun to make bags to go in each of the boxes. It would be a nice way for them to carry all of their new things. The first bag I made is for the box Megan is sending. We used a cute kitty printed fabric.

 The bag was super easy to make and didn't take long at all. To make it I cut a piece of fabric 14" x 23". I folded it in half, right sides together and sewed up the side and bottom using a 1/2 inch seam.

Next I folded the bottom corners like pictured below and sewed across them and then cut the corner off. This allows the bag to have a flat bottom.

The next step was to take some wide ribbon and fold it over the top edge and sew it on. This finished the edge very prettily and easily. Then I cut a long strip of ribbon for the strap and sewed it securely on each side.

The final touch for to make a bow from the ribbon and sew it on. I don't usually use that much ribbon but I really liked how simple it made the project. I also like the finished look.

 My next project was a little art case to hold markers, crayons and a notepad. I had enough of the kitty fabric to make this as well. I had never made anything just like this before so I was winging it but it ended up turning out fine though I might make a few adjustments if I make another one.

To make it I cut out the following items: a 13"x17" piece of fabric, a 17" x 6" fabric, 5 1/2" x 6" fabric, 2 - 8" ribbons and a 6" x 9" contrasting fabric. I also used around 12" more of ribbon.

 With the large piece of fabric cut one half of the fabric into thirds as pictured above. One side remains full and the other side is three strips.

 Next cut 1 inch off of each side "strip" and then fold it over twice and hem it.

Then fold the side strips up on to the upper part, right sides together as shown.

 Then lay the 17" x 6" piece of fabric over the top and pin in place. (like shown) In the middle pin one of the pieces of ribbon on in between the two fabrics to make a handle. Sew around the raw edges (3 sides)

Place the other piece of ribbon in the piece of fabric that is sticking out on the bottom (opposite of the other ribbon) and then put the 5 1/2" x 6" piece of fabric (right sides together) on top and pin it in place. Sew around the 3 sides.

Now turn the fabric so the right side is out. It makes it so each flap has a pocket on it.

 Now take the contrasting fabric and take a small hem on each end. Then fold the raw edges under and pin it on as shown.

To cover the raw edges in the long section cover with ribbon and pin in place. Sew in place.

Next step is to divide the side flap pockets into sections to hold markers, crayons or whatever you desire.

 For the middle pockets we decided to make a pad of paper from some pink paper we had. I stapled them together and then hot glued extra ribbon over the top and added a little bow. That when in the middle pocket on one side along with a pen and crayons are on the other side.

To transport this little art case you simply fold the side flaps in, fold the two halves together and grab the handles. It works pretty good. I hope the little girl over in Haiti or Africa or wherever she may be, enjoys it.

My next project that only took a very little time was a drawstring backpack to go in Jonathan's box. I was so happy with how easy it was. I looked at one that we had and copied it. But I found this link online so I don't have to go through all the steps here on how to make it. I hope you enjoy it if you try it! I think I am going to make one of these (though in different fabrics) for Mara and Aaron's boxes too.

Now it is your turn!!

Please link up your projects too! I love looking at all of them and getting wonderful ideas. Thanks so much to all of you who have come and linked up.

When you link up, please remember to:

• Link to your specific Handmade Christmas post- not just your blog.
• Make sure it is something you made that you are linking up.
• Link back to here and if you please would you add my logo to your post? Thanks so much!