Here's a full Operation Christmas Child List - choose from these ideas and give kids a memorable Christmas. Get all the details HERE!

Here is an index of all the posts I have written with craft how-to's or DIY tutorials. Click the image to find the post of instructions. ...

Updated March 2019 This is my favourite category from the year round suggestions from Operation Christmas Child. Any excuse to get crafting! I’ve crafted for different causes over the years…

Here are 8 reasons why you should not take part in a Christmas shoebox appeal, like Operation Christmas Child from Samaritan's Purse.

Here is a Tutorial for How to Make Hand Puppets from Fleece. Comes with free printable patterns and instructions for 8 different hand puppets.

While rearranging my sewing room I came across several hand towels and bandannas that I had tucked away in my Operation Christmas Child cra...

Here's how to make easy mini sewing kits. Perfect to tuck in your purse and travel suitcase, as well as include in Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.

I created this pattern so I could make reusable pads to put in Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. Anyone is welcome to reuse the pad a...

One of my favorite items to pack in an Operation Christmas Child shoebox is something I have made. And because I enjoy designing my ow...

The Story Our church always packs a large number of Operation Christmas Child boxes every year. This year, I asked God what he wanted me to contribute to the project and he told me to get out my sewing machine and make bags... lots of bags... As a person of fairly meager financial means who is also crazy busy all the time, I wasn't quite sure how that was going to work, but I gave it a go anyhow. I researched several simple purse designs online and came up with my own pattern that took elements from several others. It was simple enough to be made by an advanced beginner, and used pieces that were small enough to be made from scraps. Next, I asked for fabric donations. "Empty out your scrap bin", I said.... and they did. "Teach other people to make the bag," God said, and I did. "Sew, sew, sew!" and I did..... aaaaaaaand my sewing machine gave out. :( But no worries, God wanted those bags! I told my church family of my plight and was offered sewing machines from 3 different people! Somehow, the heavens granted me the supernatural ability to time travel... or something, because in the space of a couple of months, even with my hectic schedule, I managed to make 100 bags! ...and my friends, together they made almost 100 bags! So now that collection week is over, I am already gathering fabric for next year and hoping that this little tutorial will teach even more people to make these bags so that they get into even more Operation Christmas Child boxes. ....on to the tutorial.... The Pattern This is the only pattern piece you will really need. The whole thing is 28" tall, the body portion at the bottom is 12" tall. The width at the bottom is 8 and 5/8" and the strap width is 3 1/2". Make sure you draw that 5/8" line like you see in the image, you will need it. You'll want to curve the body portion into the strap portion. You'll notice 2 different curves in the image. I like to use a gentler curve for the purse version (bag 1), and a steeper curve for the school bag version (bag 2). Ultimately, the curve is up to you. This bag is pretty customizable, just pick something round to trace along... plate, bowl, cup, etc. Just depends on how gentle/steep you want the curve to be. To use the pattern, you can either cut whole panels or half panels. To cut a whole panel, fold your fabric and line up that 5/8" seam allowance line with the fold. Cut! To cut a half panel, cut all the way to the edge of the pattern. When you sew two half panels together, you'll get a whole. You'll need that 5/8" seam allowance to make sure that they are the same size as the whole panels so that everything fits together. You don't really need a pattern piece for the pockets. The Bag Designs As I said earlier, this bag is pretty customizable, you can change several things and make each bag a bit different. I have come up with two basic bag designs: the purse (bag 1) and the school bag (bag 2). They go together in virtually the same way with only a few differences. Theses differences, however could be mixed and matched however you saw fit. The Making of "The Purse" (Bag 1) Even though I believe this to be a fairly simple pattern, I am going to try to be as thorough as possible so that sew-ers of all ability levels can make it. Fabric Pieces First of all, to make either bag you will need to have the equivalent of 4 whole panel pieces cut from your fabrics. This can be from almost any combination of whole and half-cut panels, however, I like to have my 2 liner pieces cut as wholes. Most of my purses have half panels for the outside and whole panels on the inside. THIS purse, as you can see, is made from 1 whole panel and 2 half panels for the outside and 2 whole panels for the liner (the dark purple pieces). You will also need 2 pieces of fabric that are the same size for your pocket. These can be large, small, square, rectangular, or whatever. I highly recommend pressing your fabric pieces. I learned from experience long ago that it is easier to iron for a second than to fight with unruly fabric. Step 1 - The Pocket Sew your two pocket pieces, right sides together, and leave a 2" or so opening to turn it. Try to leave the opening on the bottom edge of the pocket. Clip corners, turn, and press. Step 2 - Half panels become whole panels Sew together any half panels along center seam, right sides together. Leave 5/8" seam allowance. Press seam allowance to one side. Step 3 - Attach Pocket Sew the pocket to the right side of the purse front. Sew close to edges on sides and bottom. Make sure that the opening that you had left to turn the pocket is at the bottom. It will get closed up as you stitch on the pocket. I recommend using a ruler to center your pocket from side to side. Make sure not to place it within an inch of any of the edges. Step 4 - Outside Edges Sew purse outside pieces together at outside edges, right sides together. This will require pinning to keep it straight. Do not stitch curve or the very ends of the straps. Step 5 - Corners If you were to turn it right-side-out now, it would look like this... But we're going to add some dimension to those corners, so leave it wrong-side out a bit longer. Use your hand to push into the corner and lay it flat. Line up seams, pushing the seam allowance to one side. Measure 2" from the corner, mark with pencil (1" or 1 1/2" would also work depending on what you want, just be consistent). Stitch along this 2" line. This will make a triangle. Trim off corner, leaving a seam allowance. repeat on other corner. Now you can turn it. It should look something like this... Step 6 - Purse Liner Repeat steps 4 and 5 with your purse liner pieces. You could even add pockets to those pieces as well if you wanted pockets on the inside of your purse. Step 7 - Putting the purse together At this point you should have your purse outsides done and turned right-side-out, as well as your purse liner done and turned wrong-side-out. Now you are going to place your right-side-out purse outer piece inside of your wrong-side out liner. Pin the pieces together along inner curved edge, one side at a time. Don't pin all 4 pieces together! Just pin the liner and outer on 1 side, flip it over, and pin the liner and outer on the other side. Sew together curved edge on each side. Leave ends of straps open. Step 8 - Turn and Press Reach through the opening at the end of one strap to turn the whole thing right side out. You'll want to work your hand through the inside, grab the strap on the other side and pull it back through the opening your hand is in. It'll get a little tough to turn in the middle, but just keep working at it. When you've got it turned, you'll want to press the straps and the curved edge. Step 9 - Finish Straps Sew straps together at ends. sew with purse outsides together so that the seam allowance is on the liner side. Press seam allowance to one side (or press open, either way). Turn strap edges under trifold style. Stitch on either side of center strap seam. Step 10 - Finishing Touches You could be done here if you wanted. ...but I like to add a little plastic snap closure. They're super easy and look nice. Have fun! ....and stay tuned for the instructions for Bag 2 (the school bag) Here are my kids sporting some sweet bags! My daughter has bag 1, my sons have bag 2.

A fun Christmas activity puzzle for home, the car, or school

Tips and ideas for packing Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts!

Ideas and tips for packing an Operation Christmas Child shoebox for a 10-14 year old boy shared by Arkansas Lifestyle blogger, @bigpittstop.

DIY wood spinning top that's easy and inexpensive to make. "The Simple Toy that Brings Great Joy!" great for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes!

Here are 100 paper hearts, shared in to biggest way I can on my blog, folded with love for 100 amazing days. For this project you will need: Origami paper (exact paper I used so hearts are small enough to fit in a little box) Now today's post is a video tutorial, which I hope

I've had the pleasure of working with lots of lovely ladies all around the world donating Dolls made with my original Dolly Donations Fre...

A couple years ago, I upcycled this DVD case into a game case to put in an Operation Christmas Child Shoebox. I pinned the photo below to m...

How (and why) to pack a life-changing Operation Christmas Child shoebox for a 10- to 14-year-old girl this holiday season.

Make a magnetic playset from an altoid tin! Great recycled project and kids craft. It is perfect for a travel activity or to include in Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts!

Guess what's on my Christmas wish list? Sewing kits! My daughter stumbled upon these great Singer sewing kits while at a local dollar store...

Advice from experts on what to pack in an Operation Christmas Child shoebox. These experts have worked in distribution centers handed out shoeboxes.

A friend was asking me advice about simple doll making. I've made a number of dolls in my day. The most recent ones I've posted (see creating toys above for references) have been quite intricate. Although possible for a beginner, intricate doll making is really a challenging first project. Enter memory lane. I used to mass produce these as a little girl. I had a singer purple kid sewing machine. All it did was a straight stitch and a zig zag. Perfect for whipping these up by the dozens. I think every friend I had received one from me. Ahh, memories. So, if you are in the market to learn to sew and want a doll, here's a project for you. Or if you know of a little child who wants to learn how to sew, here is a project for you. Or if you would like to upcycle one of your child's special flannel receiving blankets, here's a project for you. Or if you aren't a seamstress but still want to give a little homemade...this is also a project for you. Supplies: -Two rectangles of fabric. I used flannel receiving blankets, but you could use any fabric you have. Pillowcases work too, especially if you wanted a new sew option. You can pretty much make the rectangles of fabric any size you want, it's however big you want your doll. I used 13 inches/16 inches. -Polyfill or the insides of an old stuffed animal/pillow. -Lace (no more than a yard) -Thread -Glue gun -Ribbon 1) Cut your rectangles. These are 13x16. Or if you have a pillowcase already sewed, skip this step. 2) Attach the lace to the bottom edge of each piece of fabric or the bottom edge of the pillowcase. * Note, if the bottom seam of the fabric is already finished or the selvage edge, you can glue or sew the lace right to the edge. If it's not finished, you might choose to fold the bottom edge over/stitch, zig zag the edge or using pinking shears so it doesn't unravel. 3) Place right sides of fabric together, laced edges touching. Stitch and finish the seams of the left, top and right sides. Leave laced edge unstitched. Turn right side out, press. It should look like a pillowcase. 3) Take a small ball of stuffing and put it in the top of the pillowcase. Tie ribbon around that ball of stuffing tight to make a head. Make sure you leave the points untied so they can be the arms. 4) Add some stuffing to each point. Tie ribbon around to make arms. *Note-make sure ribbons are stitched in place and are short in length so it's safe for little ones to play with. 5) Cut piece of lace the right length to make bonnet. Stitch or glue bonnet in place. This is what it should look like. I gave it to my sweet girl. She usually isn't into dolls. She prefers tractors. Or anything that isn't supposed to be a toy. She appeared to like it. Gave it a hug when prompted. But... It wasn't long until she started shaking the life out of the poor doll. Ah, oh well. If you make one, I'd love to see your results!

Here are directions to assemble homemade fishing kits. They make great donation items, expecially in an Operation Christmas Child shoebox for a Boy (or Girl) 10-14. Great for donating to other organizations as well!

We always give the girls a new loofah in their stocking each Christmas, but I couldn’t resist making these soap pockets for this year instead (especially since our new puppy loves to find and destroy loofahs!). Although it’s too late for this year, these would also make a great addition to an Operation Christmas […]

Explore Ei menina! - Érica Catarina's 722 photos on Flickr!

Want to crochet for charity in Fall of 2020? Join my Operation Christmas Child Event - we will be crocheting Christmas gifts for kids.

Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan’s Purse, has delivered millions of gift-filled shoeboxes to boys and girls around the world. We praise God for so many children whose lives have been changed as the result of a simple gift.

Come early November the Dollar Tree will be packed with people shopping for Shoeboxes. There are some good things and some not good things a...

Necklace or Bracelet Bead Kits for Less than $.10 each kit! Materials needed: Cording: 18-24" (Lacing $.99/10 yds at Michaels) Beads: 4-5 ...

Even after coming up with 101 Operation Christmas Child shoe box ideas for Samaritan’s Purse, I’m sure there are lots of things that I didn’t list, but at least this... Read More

Here is an EASY homemade tic tac toe game. Perfect to make with a large group such as Sunday School and birthday parties. Fun to play and fun to donate.

For a special touch include something handmade with your shoebox donation for Operation Christmas Child. We have instructions for more than 50 items!! #diy

Affiliate DisclaimerWe sometimes use affiliate links in our content. This won’t cost you anything, but […]

Staging hand puppet shows for your children can be fun for both you and your child. But you don't have to spend a whole lot of money buying the puppets at the store. Hand puppets are easy to make and can be crafted from a variety of materials, including felt.

For the last few years our family has enjoyed packing shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. It is a ministry of Samaritan's Purse and is a fun project for the whole family. The concept is simple: pack a shoe box with toys, candy, toiletries, school supplies and $7 to cover shipping. Samaritan's Purse delivers the boxes to children all over the world, along with the Gospel of Jesus in the language of the kids who are receiving the boxes. We usually pack one box per child, but this year we were excited to be able to pack 31 boxes without spending a ton of money! Many items came from Dollar Tree. I try to buy multi-packs of items that can be split between several boxes. I also stocked up on school supplies when they were on sale and got a bunch of cups, water bottles and utensils 70-90% off at Dollar General. I saw a simple sewing kit on Pinterest and made these for around $.20 each. I bought buttons, thread, safety pins and needles and split them up into small ziplock bags. I put the needles through a small square of felt. Next year I want to find tiny sewing scissors to include. Dollar General also had shoes 90% off, so I got all of these for less than $1 each, including some nice tennis shoes and some cool light up sandals. I bought all they had and hit up the other Dollar General in our area as well. I wanted to include shoes in every box and had already purchased some flip flops for $1 at Dollar Tree, and was so excited to find these! We found some no-sew hat and scarf kits that I picked up a while back at Jo-Ann's Fabric on clearance and we had never used. Brayden and Brinley were so excited to make these for their boxes! We could easily re-create these for next year. The kids enjoyed sorting and bagging candy, and then we included some of their leftover Halloween candy, too. Our Sunday School class was having a packing party, but I knew it wasn't reasonable to think I could pack boxes with three kids running around (and turns out Kenny got called into work and couldn't make it to the party), so we pre-packed ours. We used some of the green and red OCC boxes, some plastic shoe boxes and some regular shoe boxes that we wrapped. For this picture, we didn't have all of our boxes yet, so we were improvising with some other sized boxes and bags. We ended up with 26 boxes, which I thought was significant because I want to run a marathon at some point, and am planning on a half marathon in June. But then we received some extra money and decided to pack five more boxes, bringing our total to 31. Another significant number for me because I am a consultant for Thirty-One Gifts. The name comes from Proverbs 31, which talks about the virtuous woman. We had a packing party with our Sunday School class. Everyone brought their goodies and we pooled them all and packed boxes together. First, we prayed for the children who would be receiving our boxes. We prayed that they would know God's love and want to learn more about Him. I made this cake for dessert. We had lots of little helpers- around 50 people in all! Our goal was 100 boxes and we hit 102! I love this quote that came from a blog called Muthering Heights: Who will tell these girls, living in such poverty, that they're beautiful? Who will tell them they are precious, unique, irreplaceable? Who will tell them they matter....that God knows their name and the number of hairs on their darling little heads? YOU WILL. You will tell them with hairbows and pencils and strawberry candies. You will tell them with notebook paper and silly bandz and a a toothbrush and socks. With a little box of gifts that says "I see you. Jesus sees you too, and he calls you beautiful." National collection week starts now! You can return boxes to participating churches, Chick-Fil-A restaurants and LifeWay Christian stores. Click here for details.

For years, I've loved the Samaritans Purse Operation Christmas Child Box ministry! We've packed boxes with our small children as a family and now pack dozens of boxes with our church family as part of our way of spreading the gospel across the world. My mother in law recently let me in on a little …

One of my favorite things about the Christmas season is putting together a couple of boxes for Operation Christmas Child , a project by Sama...

Bored at the end of a looooooooonnnggg school holidays? Try this shoebox dollhouse for a few hours of fun.

Have a drawer full of old t shirts that no one is wearing? Upcycle them into something useful and FUN! You can repurpose t shirts into Jump Ropes!

My one and three year old love babies. They love them so much that they want to swaddle and cuddle them. What happens when a toddler can't wrap their baby the way they see it in their mind? Frustration. So yesterday while I was listening to this in my kitchen I thought that I would bring up my sewing machine and make two swaddle babies for my babies. They didn't take long at all and I can't help but be happy when I see my kiddos carrying them around the house. They both went to bed last night with their baby in their arms. We made smaller versions of these with the Relief Society in my ward. We made them to donate to my church's humanitarian center. These ones I made were about double in size and instead of using fleece for the blanket (because you can leave the edge of fleece unfinished and it won't fray) I made little blankets out of cotton quilting fabric. Basically you fold the square blanket over into a triangle and sew a little rectangle in the center for the body. You're just sewing the rectangle out of both sides of the folded blanket. Make sure you stuff it before you close it up. I cut out two large circles for the heads and stitched a really long stitch around the edge so that I could pull it tight and stuff it like a little ball. I hand stitched the heads and hair and lace collar on. Then I painted the faces on. See? They are pretty easy to make. Even without a pattern. Folding the blanket sides over to swaddle their babies has never been so easy!