Operation Christmas Child - Shoebox

We have a friend of the family that recently moved to North Carolina to start her job at Samaritan's Purse, the global outreach that sponsors Operation Christmas Child.  This mission for kids started back in 1993 and is still going strong.  The simple idea behind it is people pack up special shoe boxes full of gifts for kids on the other side of the world, who would not normally get any Christmas presents.  I have to say we have never done this as a family, but I felt compelled after watching a few videos our friend posted that this is something I wanted to try this year with my girls.  How fun would it be for them to pick girls their own ages and pack up a special box for them? How fortunate are we, blessed with so much, to learn even at an early age how to be a blessing to others.  We are now planning on doing it this weekend. The best news is that it's not too late, you can do it too!  Operation Christmas Child is collecting shoe boxes all next week (November 12th - November 19th), so grab your kids and have them help pack a special gift for a far away child in need.

Operation Christmas Child - An amazing opportunity to be a blessing

Now all you need is the information.  I, being a total novice here have collected everything you need to know.  By the way, did you know that since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has given away over 95 million shoe boxes?  That is amazing.  They are hoping to reach their goal of 100 million boxes this year, and you can help.  First, if you want to read about them, and check out how the program works, visit their website here. At first I thought you would have to be apart of a church organization to do this (Many churches will have a drive to put tons of shoe boxes together). You can do as little as one or two boxes with your own family.  They have drop off locations available all over the place.  Simply input your state or zip code here and it will list all the drop off locations near you for next week.  Very handy.  Now here's what you will need:

1 regular sized shoe box (or plastic container with lid)
 You can gift wrap the shoe box, just make sure the lid is wrapped separately

Determine if you gift is for a boy or a girl 
They have them divided by ages, 2-4, 5-9, 10-14

labels like this available on their site

Fill the shoe box with gifts
Great ideas for gifts are:  

Something to wear
something to love
something for school
something to play with (cars, balls, stickers, art supplies)
something to get clean with (soap, tooth brush, etc)
hard candy
You can also include a letter/photo of your family, they might write back

Note: Things they don't want included are war toys (guns, knives, soldiers) chocolate, liquids, glass, breakables (snow globes) and vitamins.

Add $7 or more for each box to help with shipping
There is an amazing **NEW** online way to donate the shipping $ and then print out a tracking label attached to your email.  You will then be notified on which country your box ends up going to.  How cool is that?  My girls love maps.  How neat would it be to get out our globe and show them how far away their present traveled?

Secure the box with labels and rubber bands and take to a drop off location
Click here again to see if there is one near you

Click here to see the complete getting ready list plus other gift ideas.

To see the very powerful impact of a simple gift, watch this video.  It gave me chills and made me cry.

 

Here's some pictures of some shoe boxes I found online with inspirations and ideas for you:

It's pretty amazing what you can fit into a little box.

Also, did I mention they thought of everything?  They also have a way for you to give a shoe box, even if you don't have time to go out and buy everything.  Simply click here to check out their "Build-a Box" (for $30) then go and select items they will pack into a box FOR you.  What a great idea.  Love it.

Ok so my girls are excited to go this weekend and find things, I will keep you posted.  Let me know if you and your family decide to do this.  I think it's a great way to kick of the holiday season.

Have FUN With Your Pictures!

When you find something fun, that is easy to use, and makes life easier to boot, you want to share it with others.  This site I found happens to do fun, awesome things with your photos, and best of all it's free.  I am always on the lookout for how to make my blog pictures look more professional, especially when I am doing a demo that has a ton of steps.  I received a tip on this great photo website from another blogger, and it's called Big Huge Labs and you are going to love it as much as I do.

A custom rainbow mosaic I made at Big Huge Labs for my friend Rachel's birthday to post to her facebook wall

I know you are thinking, what's the catch?  Well you can use the website directly from your facebook and Flickr accounts.  This is great because you can access all the pics on these sites and have fun manipulating them.  You are more than welcome to do it that way, though I never really like logging in through public sites, just for security reasons.  They have a second option to register by signing up with your email. This will then allow you to upload full resolution pictures from your computer AND it will let you save your creations back on your computer. Once you create a masterpiece it will then allow you to save a really nice copy (usually around 600x400 or sometimes higher) on your computer.  Then upload them wherever you want.  A friend's facebook wall, email it to them, etc.  Again all of that is free and no spam mail or anything like that.  By the way I am not working for them or anything, just found a great site I wanted to pass on.  :)

They have many ways you can customize your pictures. My absolute favorite is the mosaic maker.  You can choose numbers of rows, columns, and they have some predetermined shapes too.  You can pick the color of the borders and how thick they are.  I will use mosaics a lot in my cooking demonstrations such as this:

You can make custom birthday greetings for friends and love ones on their facebook pages

This is my sister in law Jenny.  She loves super model hair flips, princess waves, and nacho cheese bugles!

You can change the border colors

You can make long step by step instructions for those pinterest posts:

And that is only ONE feature they offer.  You can select cool borders and frames for your pics, put special effects on them, make movie posters, add comic captions on your pics... I haven't even tried them all.  Just the mosaic maker is worth the email registration.  Here I just tried the caption maker:

Hey that was fun.  I can add Santa hats using that same "captioner" function

Ho ho ho it's Christmas in July

Oo I just tried the "billboard" option... choose from a sign on a street, a sidewalk, Broadway, or a forest Ranger sign.  Hilarious.

They do have some things on the website that you can buy.  Make custom calendars, coffee mugs, and high resolution prints of your creations for purchase, but seriously everything I've done over there has been free and really fun.  It's absolutely great if you are just going to use it on line for blogging, facebook friends, or any other kind of social media.  So go upload a photo right now and have some fun!  Thank me later.  :)

On line Fun - Puzzles

Have I mentioned our family loves puzzles?  We made sure that the girls, even from a small age had tons of puzzles lying around to play with and I am proud to say they are all whizzes at puzzles now (and mazes too).  Hubby and I even spent a lot of our honeymoon in a rustic cabin on the Oregon coast relaxing and doing puzzles.  Puzzles have been an awesome learning toy through the ages for parents and kids alike.  They are not just for fun and games though, as they also provide a number of benefits as well, such as increased memory, problem solving, eye-hand coordination, spacial skills, visualization, and keeping your mind sharp as you get older.

I just found a fun online puzzle site I thought I would share.  Once you register, you can submit your OWN photos and either make them private just for you, or you can share and make them public for other people to enjoy.  You can design them with just a few pieces or with many, it's up to you.  You can also browse other people's submissions, and the site is family friendly.  If you have a competitive streak, you can try to do them in the fastest time and have your scores posted up with other puzzle makers.  If you don't care about time or scores, you can just enjoy your puzzle at your own rate.

Click here to go to Jigidi puzzles and check them out!

I really like that you can select by category (outdoors, animals, nature, etc), plus check out the category for kids.  My girls have had some fun doing on line puzzles with the Disney characters, princess, Mickey Mouse, and cute puppies.

So challenge yourself with some mental gymnastics and do a few fun puzzles today!