Colored Light memory verse game

We came up with a fun way to work on our

memory verse for December Party Club 2014.

I printed out light bulb shapes, 

colored the tops and wrote one word 

of the verse on each bulb in white crayon.
I taped them to a foam core poster board and 

painted a wire running through and a cord.

I have bowls with a small amount of watered 

down craft paint and a piece of sponge in each.

The idea is to have kids rub the paint onto the bulb

 to 'magically' uncover a word from our verse.
Then we will recite the verse together. 

I will post a follow-up photo of the painted bulbs.

Here are the printable bulbs:

It was a hit!!

Only problem I had was,
there are only 14 'bulbs' and about 

30 kids that wanted to help 'turn on the lights! 

club photo by Julianna Dunning

We sang:

'and they shall call his name Emmanuel x3
which means God with us!',

to the tune of 'Happy Birthday'.

 So everyone picked up the verse easily.

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, 

and shall bring forth a son, 

and and they shall call his name Emmanuel, 

which being interpreted,  God with us.

 ~Matthew 1:23

Celebrating my Saviour Jesus' first advent...

...and eagerly awaiting His second!

 

 

If you see this, I'm praying for you! 

 May you know the great love of Jesus, our Creator!

 He'll be calling up all those trusting in Him soon and He will be King of kings and Lord of lords!

~And if I go and prepare a place for you,

I will come again, and receive you unto myself;

that where I am, there ye may be also.

John 14:3~

 

$ Dollar Stretchin' Holiday Gift and Decor Ideas

I was asked to find a Christmas craft to demonstrate for the ladies at a holiday luncheon.
Since everyone is so different, I decided that maybe 10 crafts would be better. 

The odds of one of them piquing someones interest are greater.

So, with help from Pinterest, here are 10 ideas

 I tried with reasonable success:

1. Dry Erase 'Notepads'

-Remove glass, spray paint frame of a Dollar Store 5x7 frame

-When dry, reassemble frame with a ‘shopping’ or ‘note’ sheet in place of a photo.

-Decorate edges as desired

-Attach a dry erase marker for a simple gift,

can be used in the kitchen for shopping list or by bedside for notes.

2. Personalized Plate or Mug

-Decorate a Dollar Store mug or plate with a Sharpie pen in desired design/pattern.

-Place in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes to set the ink.

3. Decorated Journals

-Start with an economy composition book

-Using the plain side of pretty scrapbook paper, trace around cover of book, front and back.  Then on inside front and back. Cut out pattern you’ve just traced.
-Glue (stick or school) a complementing ribbon across inside cover front and back for a tie, then cover with the paper you cut. Glue cover on front and back, cut a strip to cover the binding if desired.
-Embellish as desired with lace, buttons, gems etc., using tacky glue or hot glue for best hold.
-Give with a pretty pen or pencil.

4. Button Bookmarks

-Use tacky or hot glue to attach big pretty buttons to super size paper clips

-Cut a small piece of felt or paper to press on the other side of paper clip/button to hold it in place with the glue.

5. Teacup Candles

-With super glue or E6000, adhere a teacup or tea mug to its saucer.

-Affix  a wick to bottom center (double sided foam tape is best)

-Melt and pour hot wax to fill and let set up.  Soy wax is best.
-Tie a pretty ribbon round the base or lay fresh greens and berries around.

6. Circle or Star Paper Ornaments

-Cut out stars or circles. Here are printables for circles and stars or cut your own from festive scrapbook paper.

-fold down center

-Glue or tape 3 or 5 folded stars or 4-6 folded circles

-Thread a cord through center and slide beads on either end.
-Tie a knot on bottom

-Tie a loop on top to hang.

7. Snow Scene Jars

-In any clean, dry jar arrange a bit of faux snow

-Take a small snowy tree (add a little glitter glue if you like) and place in snow

-Drop in tiny cedar cones, bells, other miniature items for your scene

-Wrap ribbon, lace or a strip of burlap to top of jar.
-Spray a little glitter or fake snow as desired.

8. Village Scene Jar

-You will need a good size wide jar with smooth sides, like from pickles

-Use ‘Township Candle Holder’ template and either

1. cut out scene using black cardtock, wrap around jar or
2. put template temporarily inside jar and carefully paint 2 coats using acrylic craft paint and a small brush.

-Allow to dry, spray a little fake snow around top of jar.

-Place a real or LED candle inside and enjoy the lovely scene.

9. Gift Tubes

-Cut scrapbook paper or cardstock into 7 x 4 inch rectangles

-Roll each into cylinders and tape seam with scotch tape then cover with washi tape

-Flatten one end of cylinder and seal with scotch then washi tape

-Fill partway with a tiny gift and candy

-Flatten open end the opposite way and tape closed with more scotch then washi tape

-Decorate with stickers if desired.

10. Scrappy Felt Keyfobs

-Cut out 2 felt circles with pinking shears

-Stitch a felt initial applique or buttons to the top piece if desired

-Cut a 2 inch piece of ribbon, fold in half and pin between the circles at the edge with a loop sticking out.

-Stitch around the circle making sure the loop get secure

-Attach a key ring.

Wordless Book Tree Ornament

I was assigned to come up with a craft for our
Christmas Party Club at Good News Club.
In prayer, I asked God to show me what we should do

 and then did not think of it for a few days.
Then, as I was dropping my girls off for a club in Centralia, 

sweet Patti from the CEF board there showed me this fun craft.

 It is not only cute but has the wordless book colors
so it tells the gospel story.

                                                                                                                                               Thank you to Bob Ward Images for photo

So, with some gold metallic craft stems and felt,

we'll be making some great trees.
You take the stem and make 5 bends to start the star,
 then twist the end down and wrap around
just past the last bend, twist and then shape star.
Cut out felt using this printable guide.
Order them similar to what is shown.
A couple greens, white, green, red, couple greens, black etc.

Punch hole in center of each square using a hole punch
 with a small punch, not notepaper size.
If you don't have a punch a small thin awl
could be used to bore the stack.

 Here is the star ready for sliding felt pieces on.

Now just slide the stack on!

Finish with a twisted loop so they don't slide off.

And lay the loop flat.

Voila! A fun decoration that tells a story.

Well, here is one kit, just 39 more to make!

And I will have these Wordless Book tracts to go with them.

And Jesus said unto them, 

                                 Go ye into all the world,                                   
and preach the gospel to every creature.

                                           Mark 16:15

Update:
I cut out over 1500 squares and punched holes in each,
stacked 'em and bagged 'em!
If any kids say they don't like the craft they will be
sweeping the gym floor in its entirety! LOL

Post Party Club update:

The kids all loved this craft.
Several wanted to give them to their teachers 

that do not know Jesus.
One boy took an extra so he could make it with 

a young relative to tell her about Jesus.

Precious times!
May God's word go forth unhindered!!

Falling Into My Favorite Season

With the harvest bounty in, the crunch of leaves under my feet 

and a hot drink on a chilly Autumn evening, 

I pause to thank my Creator King Jesus for the beauty of the earth.

He truly crowns the year with His goodness!

Big thank you to Cassia and Cherish for all the sponging, 

this was a fun project, LOVE YA!!

Build-A-Frog review game

It was great fun and a huge blessing to have 

Shelley Fietkau over from Tri-Cities to help lead 

Good News Club training.
She has soooo many great ideas to help

make learning a fun, engaging experience.

Our club has acquired 2 new games from her idea stash,

 'Football Toss' and 'Build-A-Frog'.

After trying out 'Build-A-Frog' on my kids, 

I changed it up a bit to make it easier.
The original game had the choice of tossing either 

little rubbery sticky frogs or 'jumping' tiddlywink frogs. 

Both were difficult for my 7-11 years kids to get into the 'pond'. 

So I found this flannel print in my stash and made 

wee froggy bean bags. 

So here is the game. 2 laminated frog sheets, 

a Dollar Tree 'pond', 3 frogs and a dry erase marker or 2.

Another change I made to Shelley's original was to remove the 

Right and Left specifications from the arm and leg labels.

 It was to hard to finish the game in a 

timely manner the original way. 

And I added question marks to the middle since you 

get to pick whatever you want when landing in that hole. 

So here is the purple team landing their frog in 

'arm' and choosing an arm.

And blue team landing in the center,

 picking the body to fill out. 

The directions.

This was fun to practice, 

I hope it will be just as fun in club in the upcoming weeks. 

~The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life;

and he that winneth souls is wise.~

Proverbs 11:30

Memory Match Game

With just over a week 'til Good News Club starts, I am getting games ready.

 Review games and Bible verse memorization games.
I've been looking for books to make a large memory match game and finally found some suitable at $ Tree.

So here are my 2 Bible Readers and 2 packages of plastic plates. 

The bottom of the pkg. says 8 plates so I decided to make 8 matches for my game.

Tore out the desired pages.

Used a funnel to get a perfect circle.

                                               Cut them out. 

(My kids are offended by the lame depiction of the ark 

God had Noah build but it'll work for the game-lol)

And what do ya know, I got ripped off by 2 plates!
I'll just have 7 matches!
I laminated each picture, cut them out again and 

used double stick tape to fasten them to the plates.

Now to play, I'll just mix them all up and

lay them out upside-down on the floor.

When a review question is answered correctly, 

students will be able to try finding a match!

Verse Token holders for backpacks

At Good News Club training,
I was introduced to a great idea for 

backpack clip to hold verse tokens.

At the end of club, kids can slide their verse token into it 

and they will have it

 on the packs all week to work on, and NOT lose. 

I wanted to make it as cheap as possible since 
our budget for club is pretty much whatever

 we come up with from our own coffers.

So I used old clearview sheets which were surplus to our needs, 

duct tape from my girls' crafty supplies 

and some book rings I purchased at Wal*Mart, 8 for $1.88.
 

One could use old transparency sheets or the 

by-the-yard plastic table cover, 

whatever can be salvaged to make this affordable. 

The following shows how I made them, 
a bit overdone for a simple project 
but hopefully enough detail to cover 
all learning styles if you'd like to make them for your club. 

Measure  5 inches over from the edge

 that does not have holes punched.

And 9 inches up.

Cut out and fold up.

Measure and cut just over 5 inches of fun duct tape. 

If you have to purchase this, Wal*Mart has it $3 a roll.
My girls have rolls 'n' rolls of the stuff, so I asked 

them to donate to the cause. 

Cut the strip in half lengthwise.

Carefully fold each strip over each end...

...like this.

 Trim excess tape on edges.

Cut another strip, this time just over 4 1/2 inches.

Fold over each side.

Trim excess taking care to not slice into the plastic.

(warning from experience)

Punch a hole in the corner.

Voila!!
A nifty verse token holder for clipping on a backpack!

32 waiting their turn on a backpack!

A way of doing this in even greater economy would be to use rubber bands.

Just slip a band through the hole and pull it through itself.

Then pull the holder through the band wrapped around the strap of backpack or to a clip on pack.

Works for Calloway!

I like the clips better!

And I especially like my lovely models Cassia and Cherish!

~All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness...~

2 Timothy 3:16