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
~~ <> @ <> ~~

 

* Banks
~~ <> @ <> ~~

 

* Bargains Galore
~~ <> @ <> ~~ 

* Bulletin Boards
~~ <> @ <> ~~

 

* The Bethlehem Project
~~ <> @ <> ~~

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.

~~ <> @ <> ~~

* A Bookmark
~~ <> @ <> ~~

* Christian Acronym ATC's
~~ <> @ <> ~~

* Christmas Card Exchange
~~ <> @ <> ~~
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. 

~~ <> @ <> ~~

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. 

'~~ <> @ <> ~~

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.





~~ <> @ <> ~~

* God Richly Provides!
~~ <> @ <> ~~

 

* Golden Rule ATC 

~~ <> @ <> ~~

* Hand-Crafted vs. Store-Bought Toys
~~ <> @ <> ~~

 

* 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.

~~ <> @ <> ~~

* More ATC Ideas!

~~ <> @ <> ~~

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.

~~ <> @ <> ~~

* No Glue Playdough Slime Recipe  Note: This is NOT a gluten-free recipe. 
~~ <> @ <> ~~

 

* Pillowcase Aprons
~~ <> @ <> ~~

 

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. 

~~ <> @ <> ~~

* Tissue Box Notebooks

~~ <> @ <> ~~

* Veggie Tale ATC's
~~ <> @ <> ~~ 

* Veggie Tales

Crafty Christmas Gifts

2018 = This year's selection for a crafty Christmas gift for all the ladies in our family (his and her sides) was a pincushion and I found the idea at YouTube on a video titled "Easy Pincushions with Jenny, Misty, and Cindy" by Missouri Star Quilt Company. I really enjoyed shopping at thrift stores for the containers and bought the Lizard Litter and some pillow filler fluff. Just a warning - the smallest bag Petco carries of Lizard Litter is a ten-pound sack of crushed walnut shells! 😁

Many of the pots were still dirty from their last use, so almost as soon as I got home with them, they got scrubbed in a warm, sudsy bath. I looked them over carefully at the store for cracks and chips and a couple of them didn't transfer home so well, so I had to touch up a couple with matching paint. All in all though, they were so cute when I finished making them. 

If you decide you have to make some too, here's what I suggest: several of the containers were deep and I stuffed the bottoms of them with plastic grocery sacks and foam packing before adding the glue around the top edges and then stuffing the pincushion bubble in and adding more glue where needed. To make the pincushion bubble,  I put the center of the fabric upside down into the top of a little cardboard tea package lid that was about 1 1/2 inch deep (you could use a custard cup or other small container), spooned in about 3 scoops of lizard litter, then drew it up into a "bubble" and stuffed pillow fluff into the opening (which will be the bottom of the pincushion), while twisting some strong crochet thread around the "neck" to tie it closed (secret: tie a slip knot first with a 3 inch tail and pull tight, then wrap the thread around the neck two or three times and tie off) and cut off the excess fabric. I used a thumbnail and a Chinese bamboo chopstick to push the pincushion pillow into the opening of several of the containers and tried to smooth them out until tight. Then I stretched a couple of large rubber-bands around the top of pincushion and the bottom of the containers to hold the pincushions in until the glue dried and set overnight. Added a couple of straight pins and a safety pin on top to finish them off. Made 25 in all and the gals had fun picking out their favorite one to take home!

If you want to see details, click on the photo to enlarge! 

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

But I'm as snug as a bug in a rug inside! 

Decided it was time to put my scissors and paper trimmer to work!

The cardboard box contains two brown paper grocery sacks stuffed to the gills and overflowing with paper food and product packaging.

This is my word box.

All words, cut out from packaging, extra stamp offs and confetti wording go into this pencil box. I use them on artist trading cards (atc's), artsy greeting cards, my Documented Faith scripture art journaling pages, glue-book pages, etc. 

When I don't have a individual word I can use, I dip into my letter pouch and spell out the word I need. I've separated the letters into snack sized zip bags. I also have a few alpha stickers in the back. It looks more artsy if the lettering doesn't match. I also have some punctuation and numbers as well. 

I may keep some images for my atc image collection and if there are any leftover pieces large enough for atc's of packaging left, it will get cut up into atc blanks and put away into a shoebox that I keep for that purpose. 

A perfect job for a cold snowy day!