Creative Church Crafting

There are many opportunities to be creative at church, especially since we were crafted by a creative God in his image! ☝👨👩 We sang a song at church last Sunday that mentions all the different colors of the world - 

"Jesus loves the little children, 

all the children of the world - 

red and yellow, black and white, 

they are precious in his sight,

 Jesus loves the little children of the world." 

I was delighted to see the children's faces - they were surprised that we of the mature set knew that song too! 👴👵

I wanted to compile a post like my best tips post and include an index to other longer church craft posts I've created in the past. Enjoy! 

* Advent Article & Crafts
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* Banks
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* Bargains Galore
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* Bulletin Boards
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* The Bethlehem Project
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Date: December 21, 2011-Christmas Stockings

I was rooting around in our church’s Sunday School teachers Resource Room and found two boxes stuffed full of pieces of old felt leftover from some other project, so I decided to make Christmas stockings for my Sunday School kids.

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* A Bookmark
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* Christian Acronym ATC's
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* Christmas Card Exchange
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Date: December 21, 2011- Church mouse Cookie

Making a list and checking it twice. Okay, I just finished sewing up the felt cookie with the bite out of it for our children’s church mice Christmas drama. It has white felt “icing” and bugle beads for sprinkles sewn on. The rather flat “pillow” is stuffed with plastic grocery bags. They mold a little flatter and stiffer than pillow stuffing will. Some of the children were to hold candy canes and they came from the dollar store. Now to find “nests” of blankets/towels for all the “mice” and wrap the HUGE “gift” with wrapping paper and a large bow (hot water tank box) for the stage. 

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Date: Jan to Dec 2020: Weekly Coloring Sheets I'm doodling weekly coloring sheets to share with my church family. There are adults as well as children who like to color! I like to use Twistable coloring pencils by Crayola to color with myself. For instance, our associate pastor takes a coloring book with him to medical appointments and colors in the waiting room. He said it is very relaxing and better to keep his hands and mind active while waiting to see the doctor than to watch a pot to boil, so to speak. 😇 The printable coloring sheets are FREE and available linked into our church website . The image is paired with scripture. IMHO, nothing is better to meditate on than God's word. 

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Date: April 23, 2011- Easter Baskets

I made fifteen of these Easter baskets for the kids in my Sunday School class out of the small nut cans. They are like the banks I made earlier. The only thing I did differently was to add two punched holes on the sides of the can and thread in tinsel pipe-cleaners for the handles. I found tiny goodies to put inside. On most of the medallions, I hot-glued a stamped duck (Stampin' Up) to the front. The duck's bow was colored to match the scrapbook paper.





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* God Richly Provides!
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* Golden Rule ATC 

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* Hand-Crafted vs. Store-Bought Toys
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* Mission Project (July/Aug 2019) = this is our ladies current mission project - crocheting scarves for young people in another country. To date, we have 60 of the projected 80 scarves. My first scarf and hat (blue & gray) is at the very top of this mission scarf tree.

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* More ATC Ideas!

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Date: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - Mr. Egghead

Here’s what I made for my Sunday School Kids this year. I made a template pattern of a large egg from heavy  white cardstock a printer gave me and cut it out with a handle so they could carry it easily. I kept it black & white so they could color it if they so desired. After watching Rack, Shack, & Benny (a Veggie-Tale movie) a few weeks ago, one little girl in my class said she wanted a chocolate bunny for Easter, so each egg had a chocolate bunny taped to the front. I also found a magnetic refrigerator Creation Bible story toy at a surplus store for 50 cents apiece which I taped to the back.

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* No Glue Playdough Slime Recipe  Note: This is NOT a gluten-free recipe. 
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* Pillowcase Aprons
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Date: March 28, 2012 - The Last Supper

I come from a long line of crafty women and one of the photos I found while digging in a box of photos is of my grandmother’s “Last Supper." She loved dolls and wanted to make a realistic representation of DaVinci’s painting.

To find enough male doll figures (I believe they were GI Joes) Grandma came to town for a visit with a shopping list in hand. She and mom went thrift shopping to purchase the figures,  to buy material for the Biblical costumes she sewed for them and the tablecloth for the table. Also, they purchased tiny dishes and clay for the miniature loaves of bread. Some even got wigs of hair glued on and tiny sandals. My Uncle made the long wooden table and benches for the “disciples” and “Jesus” to sit at. Grandma displayed her creation for many years on her sideboard at Easter and after she passed away, my mother displayed it on top of her restored upright piano. It might have graced the communion table a time or two at our home church during the holidays too. 

I bet my preschoolers in Sunday School would love this hands-on representation of the Last Supper. I just may have to do as Grandma did and make one too. 

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* Tissue Box Notebooks

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* Veggie Tale ATC's
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* Veggie Tales

Hand-crafted vs. Store-bought

 

It has come to my attention recently, through a reliable resource, that the Kansas City Toys for Tots Organization will only accept new store-bought toys in the original cardboard packaging. They will not accept hand-crafted toys such as wooden ones made by a local woodworkers guild.

Now that seems a shame, because those kind of toys were precisely the ones I sought for my son when he was younger (he's now 27) as they held up better than the cheap plastic toys, took more imagination to play with and didn't have to have costly batteries all the time in order to work. In fact, we still have many of his wooden toys in a basket under the coffee table for the some-day grandchildren to play with. All my friends' grand-children know where that basket is when they come over to my house. There is a wooden shoe lovingly made by a girlfriend's husband when my son was learning to tie his shoes and I later had it with me when I was teaching my Pre-K Sunday School class. My sister painted a bunch of wooden cars for his Christmas one year. The same girlfriend above and I painted wooden houses together for a village so his wooden cars would have something to drive to. We were making toys and memories. I have a wooden nativity set, Noah's ark figures and animals.

We searched historical museum gift shops for wooden toys and once bought a wooden climbing bear from Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. Wooden puzzles stand up better than cardboard ones and my toddler son loved building with his wooden blocks and knocking them over.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, as a crafter, if you are going to donate items to any organization, go to the top and find out precisely to the letter what their rules are. The woodworkers guild I mentioned above were heartsick when they found out Toys for Tots threw their wooden toys away after spending so much time, effort, and material to make them. After that, they did their homework and found another organization who was absolutely delighted to accept their hand-crafted toys.

 

Merry Christmas Everyone and a Happy New Year!

Love to shop here:

Here's a list of some of my favorite places to shop for new and used crafting supplies in my local area! I rarely buy online as we've been burnt a time or two with fraudulent companies or teeny-tiny products made to look bigger than they really are with trick photography. However, I do like the coupons and gift cards that I request for special occasions! 😊

1/2 of 1/2

Big Lots

Blessings Abound Thrift 

Cargo Largo

City Thrift

Dollar General

Dollar Tree

eBay

Family Dollar

Families for Home Education (FHE; MO. state association) (used curriculum sales) 

Friends of Animals Thrift

Garage Sales by Map

Goodwill

Goodwill Outlet

Half-Price Books (Arts & Craft books)

Harbor Freight

Hobby Lobby

Ikea

Joann's

Maj-r Thrift

Michael's

Museum Gift Shops

Ollie's

Red Racks Thrift

Restore

Salvation Army

Savers

Scraps KC 

The Thrift Shopper

US Toy

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* Farmhouse Décor * 

Bag Balm (one of my farmer grandfathers used this product). 

Chamberlains (dad liked this hand lotion)

Cockrell Mercantile

Cornhusker Lotion (and the other one used this product).

Jamesport, MO Shopping

Massachusetts Street (Downtown) Lawrence, KS Shopping

Pryde's of Westport 

The Brass Armadillo Antique Flea Market Mall

Watkin's (my grandparents & parents used Watkin's products)

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* Bucket Wish List*  

(I'd love to go check these places out!) 

Colonial Patterns Store

Hammer Bros. 

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                                                                    *USA Shopping:*

 

Check out these websites to find frugal shopping in your area:

Choose to Reuse (Hennepin Co, MN)

Freecycle

Lehman's (Ohio)

St. Louis, MO. Teachers Recycle Store.