Awana October Treats

Pinterest led me to a great blog by Julie called Happyhomefairy where I found this great free printable for fall treats.

I was looking for ideas to make an Awana October treat for the kids.  The Ladies Missionary Fellowship makes something every year.  The last few years we have made a "pumpkin patch" for the kids to pick a treat so I try to find something to use as a pumpkin.  I had found these bright beautiful orange Solo cold cups at Sam's Club.  I knew I didn't want to fill it with candy so more walking around Sam's brought me to a kid's favorite, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish and Gatorade bottles.  Hmmm...what do you do with all that stuff and call it a pumpkin treat?  Well, you use a permanent marker to draw a face.  I will admit I printed a template for the mouth to trace around but the triangle nose and eyes are totally handmade.  LOL!  You print the cute witnessing stickers from the site I mentioned above.  You bring 7 friends who love Christ together to help you and...tada...pumpkin treats are made for 80 kids in less than 2 hours.

My friend, Jane, thought the kids would want some candy in them so we tucked in a couple of Tootsie Pops in each cup.

<^..^> Lori

Big Lots Laundry cart has other uses

I saw this laundry cart ad for Big Lots for $24.

I decided to try it.  I have other laundry carts and they are getting worn out.  That sounds funny doesn't it.  The fabric is torn from too much laundry stuffed in them.  They have been in my basement for many years and are starting to rust a bit.  Plus I had a $5.00 off coupon from my Buzz rewards card from Big Lots to make the replacement deal even sweeter.

Turns out they have a great feature where there is a wire rack underneath the baskets that keeps them from sagging and eventually the baskets getting dragged along the floor like my old ones.  Each basket can be removed individually unlike my old one.  That is super for moving dirty clothes from the laundry cart to the clothes washer.  I am really liking this laundry cart.  I bought a second one to replace my other laundry cart...then I got crazy and bought a 3rd one.  Why?  Well, good question.  I got another Big Lot coupon in my inbox.  Coupons are a good thing in my book.  Plus, I decided that the cart would be useful to organize some other items than laundry.  I put my gift wrap into it.  I don't know how original that is but it works for me.

My old laundry carts have been washed and sewn up.  I will recycle them at church to hold gym equipment for Awana games.  I think it would work great for dodge balls or bean bags and the like.

<^..^> Lori

Give your Awana leaders a little "Excitemint"

No, I didn't give up my blogging.  I just stink at keeping up with what is going on in my crafty life.

Jim is the Awana commander for our church.  We like to give the leaders a little treat during the year.  We have a lot of great people that are willing to volunteer their time to work with kids age 3 through 6th grade telling them about the Gospel of Christ.  We thought a thank you was in order.

We had our kickoff meeting for the Awana leaders at church.  I made up a little thank you gift for each of them.  I found Aldi sells Excitemint gum at $.99 for 6 packages.  That made them affordable for me as I would need about 40 packages.  I am all for easy so I printed out labels created in MS Word on Avery 5167 address labels that said "Thank you for your commit "mint" to Awana".  I put one on each package of gum.  Hannah helped me hand them out at the meeting by saying here is a little "Excitemint" for you to start of the Awana year right.

I got the seed idea for this treat from one of my all time favorite Ladies Ministry bloggers, Julia Bettencourt.  She has a section she wrote on using different types of candy bars with catchy phrases for table favors and thank you notes.  When I saw this gum brand, I knew it would work.

<^..^> Lori

Free Valentine download from Jennifer McGuire

Don't miss Jennifer's cute tutorial to make a great calorie free Valentine here.  Jennifer is the real deal crafter keeping us informed with great ideas and great videos and now this great free download.  I am so grateful when people share their talents.

I ordered the card decks from Amazon by following her link.  It got here in 2 days.  I printed the free download and made them in super fast time.  They are going to be treats for kids in our Sunday school class and our Awana class.

Here they are…

<^..^> Lori

Follow up on the Awana pumpkin patch

We set up the pumpkin patch for the Awana club tonight.  I told you about this project earlier in the month so I thought a picture of the finished patch would be nice.

<^..^> Lori

Clementine pumpkins (part 2)

They look so cute in the mailboxes at church that I have to share a photo.  So many people give their time and attention to the Awana program.  We hope this gives them a smile and encourages them to continue to serve the Lord in this ministry.

Here are the leftovers in our fruit bin at home.  My daughter is already eating them.  She loves clementines.

<^..^> Lori

Clementine Pumpkin Awana leader treats

I pinned this idea about making jack-o-lantern faces on clementine oranges with the idea of using it for an Awana leader treat.  Tonight I made them.  It didn't take long to put faces on the clementines.  I made up three of the 3 lb. bags.  That made about 60 little clementine pumpkins to give the leaders this Wednesday.  The kids are getting pumpkins too but they will have chocolate in their paper pumpkins.  I really like how this turned out.  I plan to give one to each leader with a note attached thanking them for their dedication to our church's Awana program.

Originally I thought I would cut faces out of vinyl but a sharpie was faster and easy to do a simple jack-o-lanter face so I went with it.

<^..^> Lori

October Awana Treat to encourage the kids to invite a friend

I am working on a project for Awana.  Last year Halloween fell on our normal Wednesday meeting night so we had a special Trunk or Treat night for the kids.  Halloween falls on a Thursday this year so we will change things up. 

The kids will get loads of candy on Halloween so we will give the kids a smaller candy treat of three Hershey kisses inside a 3-D pumpkin.  They will also get a glassine bag.

The bag will have an orange marker we got through NAEIR and a two sided card.  One side of the card is for the kids to color.  The other side has an invitation for the kids to give a friend.   If they get a friend to come with them, they will both get a special out of this world treat.  I am going to get large Milky Way bars for each of them with a flag on it that says "Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

The 3-D pumpkin idea was from my partner in teaching 1st graders at Awana.  She had a pattern but I wanted to be able to make it a little larger and to cut it with the Silhouette.  I found this pumpkin with free pdf download.

I altered it just a bit in my Silhouette Design Studio to make it large enough to hold 3 Hershey kisses and have holes to threat the twine through the top for tying.

Because I cut them out of 12 x 12 orange and fall colored paper, I had space on the sides that I didn't want to waste.  I added "toothy pumpkin" by Sarah Bailey in those spaces.  I glued the toothy pumpkins on the outside of the glassine bags.  You can see a couple of the glassine bags in the photo.

The kids will get to pick a pumpkin treat from a table set up as a pumpkin patch.  Each pumpkin was cut from paper on my Silhoutte Cameo.  Three Hershey kisses are inside each pumpkin and the top is held together with twine.

If the kids have friends attending Awana they are more likely to come each week.  It isn't about numbers.  It's about having fun as we learn about God's truth.  I pray the Lord will bless our efforts.

The Ladies Missionary Fellowship group will help to put this all together at next month's meeting.  I am so grateful for the willing hands on projects like this one. 

<^..^> Lori