This week, CraftPaperScissors.com is featuring easy craft projects that can be donated to Operation Christmas Child. Learn more and enter our Plaid giveaway!
By Betsy Burnett of Aim Happy
Operation Christmas Child gives kids all over the world a tangible gift of love in the form of a shoebox stuffed with essentials and comforts.
With my family I have always found my boys harder to shop for than my girls. The same is true for my shoebox gift packing. While I always have tons of ideas of things I could make or buy for girls shoebox gifts, boys were more difficult, and then I saw a simple top made from a wooden wheel. I knew this would be a perfect toy for either gender! It’s fun to see a child’s face light up when they finally perfect spinning a top.
DIY Spinning Top
Materials:
- Wood wheel
- Dowel that fits snugly into center of wheel
- Wood Glue
- Pencil Sharpener
- Sand paper
- Paint and brushes-I used Apple Barrel Multi Surface by Plaid in Wild Grape, Primary Blue, True Green and Candy Apple
Instructions:
- Cut dowel rods to create handles, for ease of spinning I found cutting length no longer than diameter of the wheel worked well
- Using pencil sharpener “sharpen” one side of the dowel rod. Sand down the point to keep it from being “too sharp”
- Paint pieces as desired
- Insert dowel into middle of the wheel, adjust dowel to have a 1/3-2/3 ratio above and below the top.
- Glue into place
How to Get Involved
Readers can check out the Operation Christmas Child website. There they will find shoebox stories, information on how to pack a shoebox gift, find the nearest drop-off location, have free resources sent to them and more! Friend Operation Christmas Child on Facebook.
If they would like to hear more about my personal adventures as the #CrazyShoeboxLady, they can visit my blog and click on “Shoebox 1K.” I’m also on Facebook!
Plus: A Grand Prize Giveaway from Plaid!
We’re giving away over $300 worth of craft supplies from Plaid! (Thanks, Plaid.) Enter the giveaway today!
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I have participated in a craft for children type in the past, and have donated toward Christmas gift boxes for our troops. I sure would love to win.
Samaritan Purse and Operation Christmas Child are one of my favorite charities. This year it was too warm to handle yarn during the summer for knitting..I usually knit a lot of hats, head bands, and mittens for the boxes. This year I garage saled to get beads from necklaces which I converted to colorful bracelets with elastic string. They were fun and quick to make (watching T.V.). I made almost 30 in 2 evenings. It is a good way to recycle jewelry and bead craft supplies.
Operation Christmas Child is on my heart all year long! I have created YouTube videos of some of the boxes we have sent. I love shopping for these children with my own children. Great items for little boys are balls, puzzles, crayons, coloring books, flash lights with extra batteries, and I could go on and on. Love this sweet gift you are sharing today, a spinning top! God bless you!
Such a cute idea! Great for filling the shoeboxes!