Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Official Tchotchkes Moratorium (Operation Christmas Child)

I have a love-hate relationship with crafting.

Love:  I enjoy making things.
Hate:  I loathe clutter.  I do not like tchotchkes (yep, that's how it's spelled).  Once I have the experience of making something I'm either "been there and done that" about it, or I'm so critical I can't stand to keep it around because I find its flaws.  I have donated many of my creations to Goodwill.

So with this ambivalence in mind, I went through my Pinterest boards a while back and unpinned a lot of projects.

That was a relief.

This past weekend I had an Operation Christmas Child box packing party.  It was fun, and together my girlfriends and I created 35 boxes. I think most women there want to go forward with this.  New to many, I heard, "Well, now I know what I'm doing, so next year..."

My friend Dori taught us so much about how to get the most into our boxes.  She was an inspiration.

The afternoon just warmed my heart. Of course, we were working and talking so much, I only took one photo--after everyone left, and that photo is even missing a few of the boxes...
My friend Lynette's are missing from above, she used Michael's photo boxes for hers.  How cute is this?
While sandwich eating (inhaling) and net surfing during my ten minutes of lunch "break" on Tuesday, something caused me to decide I should now craft for others.  I can't remember what I saw, but I started web searching and reviewing pins for projects with a purpose in mind.

Now I hope to make a few things each month for my boxes for '13, starting with these:

He's a chipmunk, but I might leave off the tail and make him a bear.

I couldn't find marbles this year, and at the last minute I remembered they sell them at Party City.  However, I have learned NOT to go there the weekend before Halloween. Perhaps I could do this next weekend for my class boxes...

My knitting sensei tells me I could even make these!

I'm pretty excited about this, and I'm looking forward to getting started.  

Also, I found a great OCC reference site, I think Dori had shared it with me before, but I came across it again.  Operation Christmas Child might turn me into a coupon user yet...

2 comments:

  1. I never know what to do with bric a brac (too lazy to copy/past ethe "t" word because I will surely mess it up if I tried to spell it). I don't have a special place for them.

    You've found some very useful projects. I can't wait to see your projects! I love a good DIY. :)

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  2. What a great idea! Each of my children usually does a box for a child the same age and gender, but we usually visit the dollar store and Target dollar bins so we can fill it with as many items as possible without breaking their banks (I make them use their money to buy and I pay the shipping)

    I've issued a moratorium on crafting because 1) I don't have time 2) My house is a mess (by my standards) right now and I don't need to add anything else into the mix!

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I'd like to be humble and say I only blog to record the doings of my life, but really, I blog for conversation, and I would love to hear from you. It's okay if you don't agree with me, that's what makes life interesting.