Our super hero capes made from t-shirts!!
Yesterday I invited all the older elementary and middle school kids that help me in the church’s preschool department over to our house. We had taco soup, the cheeseball from heaven, the magically delicious corn dip and some chocolate chips cookies! We weren’t really there for the food. We were really there to get our CRAFT ON!
I’ve been saving t-shirts ever since Lydia went to camp and took that fabulous Tshirt Upscycle class. I wanted to make all kinds of cool t-shirt crafts so we could put them in our Operation Christmas Child boxes this year! (We’re hoping to pack 40 boxes this year!)
We worked mainly on necklaces, scarves, skirts and super hero capes. Yes, you can make all four of those things from t-shirts and it doesn’t require any sewing! (Here’s some tutorials we tried yesterday!)
Stretching the tshirts to make scarves!
It was so fun seeing all the kids on the floor working on their projects. It’s one of my favorite things–helping kids (of any age) see how easy and fun it is to do something for others and for God.
Fingernail polish painting the washers for our necklaces!
We ended the day climbing the rocks in our backyard and trying out our crazy high tire swing. And there was some hot chocolate in there, too!
You can’t hear the screams & squeals of laughter!
Today marks the first day of the National Packing Week for Operation Christmas Child 2014. If you’ve never packed a shoebox, I strongly challenge you to do one this year!! Just one box! Take your kid to the dollar store and buy what you can. It’s so easy and so fun! (My kids are packing boxes right now before school!)
I cannot overstate how amazing the organization of Operation Christmas Child is or how much they truly see each box as one child and one opportunity for the Gospel. This small gift can do so much! It’s a vehicle God uses to send His love to people in some of the darkest places.
Last year I read Franklin Graham’s book about the history of Operation Christmas Child and sobbed through most of it. Each short chapter tells the story of a box that changed the life of a child–or the life of the giver! It is stunning how God uses these small gifts full of dollar store items to do honest-to-goodness miracles in lives around the world. And even cooler? YOU CAN BE A PART OF ONE OF THOSE MIRACLES!!
Be a part of a simple gift and pack a shoebox!
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Last year we filled 3 shoe boxes. This year we already filled 3 more. Happy to do it. A blessing.
I have done a few shoe boxes over the years. This year we did a few with our small group at church. My daughter is 15 months, but I think that starting next year we are going to start making shoe boxes for girls her age.
We LOVE Operation Christmas Child. It has been one of our traditions since my hubby and I were dating, and now our girls love putting together boxes too. One year during our college years, my siblings and I also led our (Chinatown) church youth group to put together over 100 shoeboxes…our congregation probably consisted of 100 people, half of them elderly, another fourth were high schoolers or younger, lots of new immigrants, but wow, I was blown away by the generosity of those we asked to donate items!
I absolutely love Operation Christmas child! My husband and I work with the elementary kids at our church and have a huge packing party every year for the kids to pack shoe boxes! This year we packed 110 boxes, that was the most we have done in the last 5 years! It’s so exciting to see our kids get excited about sharing Jesus and gifts with others who have much less than we do!
I had never heard of this before! I live in a small town in Nebraska so I figured there wouldn’t be any drop off sites nearby. But I checked the website and couldn’t believe how many there were all around us! Then I went to charity navigator to check out the organization. I was happy to see their great charity score! Now I’m so excited to take part in this. Thank you for sharing. It is such a tangible way to teach the kids about the true meaning of Christmas and God’s love.
Hi Amanda,
Last year was the first year we participated in Operation Christmas Child. Each of my three children packed a box. This year in addition to packing boxes as a family, my Girl Scout troop (8 sixth graders) is also packing a box. The girls are bringing their items to our meeting tomorrow and they want to write notes to include as well. I was excited to see that for a small donation I can order Operation Christmas Child patches for my troop. They are all about the patches! LOL! This is a simple, yet very powerful and impactful way of serving others during the holiday season.
Julie! You won the book! Email me your snail mail and I’ll get it out right away!
amanda at ohamanda dot com
🙂
a
Operation Christmas Child is one of my favorite heart projects. I would love to help distribute the boxes one day, but I think I’d be a sobbing mess the whole time!! What a fantastic cause!!