For many years now, (I think 13?) I've been working with my church to put together our annual Family Christmas Workshop. This is a make-n-take outreach event in which we provide the prepared materials for 300-500 each of 28-30 different crafts. Kids of all ages come and spend 3 hours making crafts of their choice and working at their own pace(though that's usually warp speed because they want to do as many as possible.) It's a blast! And they leave with a boxful of treasures! The dollar stores have been an invaluable asset for this event, my favorite being Dollar Tree. As long as you can think outside the box, there are treasures galore! And for us, with a budget of less than 75 cents per craft, it's essential!
Dollar Tree carries packages of pyramid favor boxes, though they're easier to find in the spring. It comes in a package of 5 for $1, mixed gold and silver. We were going to make a Christmas snack, but decided the box was too pretty to use for food packaging that would be thrown away afterwards. So we made it into a Christmas tree instead...
Check out the tutorial for complete instructions.
I think one of my favorite areas in the store is the wedding section. Ironically, I've never purchased anything from there for an actual wedding. I thought I'd share a few examples of things we've done the past couple of years using items you can find amongst the wedding supplies.
Next year, we have plans to do an angel with the same favor box ....
I'll be doing tutorial for this soon. Watch my upcoming posts.
Another favorite for the last several years is the little white pails. They come in a package of 3 for $1. This year we did a snowman hot tub, with snowmen made from glove fingers. I've already posted this tutorial.
In previous years, we've also done a snowman treat pail, and the tutorial is here ...
... and a doggie treat pail, complete with dog biscuits (or you could use Scooby snack graham cookies too). Check out the tutorial ...
They also carried some fabric favor bags that were very lovely with jewel trim on the bottom, in a package of 4 for $1. Stuffed with a little gift packaging shreds, these ultimately became a sachet angel ornament, and here's the tutorial ...
The little folded gift bags seem to have endless uses for us, especially at a package of 12 for $1! We've made them into little gift bags to hold the earring craft they made. Here's the tutorial for this craft ...
This year, we decorated them up and made a "real" doggie bag, complete with yummy dog treats...
But really, they seem to be an endless blank canvas...
These ideas listed come from just one small area of the store. But when we're preparing for our event, there isn't an area of the store that we don't check for possibilities. The chip clips are another of my favorite at 3 for $1. But there's also socks and gloves and doilies and clothes pins and ... well, a whole store of potential.
I hope you try a few of these yourself. You can find the material lists and instructions at childmade.com or at my blog.
