It's been so long, I'm not even going to attempt to catch up!
I'm now teaching an Awana class at church on Wednesday nights, a class full of middle school girls :) They have taught me so much this year and I wanted to find a way to show them how much I love them, but also something that would help them remember our class and something that would help them share their faith with others. A wonderfully crafty friend helped me come up with the idea of a necklace made from a washer....of course I went straight to the source of all things good...Pinterest....and found a number of great ideas! So here's my first ever "tutorial" of these sweet necklaces!
Materials needed - Washers (I got a bag of 20...lots of room for error)! There are a million different sizes of washers out there (who knew) I got ones that I felt were big enough for my word to fit on.
A letter punch kit, I got mine (or my mom - she's my in town shopper) from Hobby Lobby, it was the most expensive part of this project, I'm sure if you had the time to look around you could find one cheaper.
A hammer, I'm pretty sure you know what one of those looks like, all though I think I ended up using a mallet, the little hammer didn't work as well, (that's where those 20 washers come in handy, trial and error)
A spool of leather, you could use any material you'd like, I just really enjoyed the look of the leather.
Some sparkle...they are teenagers after all...
And something to glue your sparkle down, I tried my BFF hot glue, but it didn't work very well, I ended up using a craft glue, and the excess came off with no problem after it had dried.
Take your washers, hammer/mallet, and punch set outside to a hard surface, I ended up using the sidewalk. I strongly recommend having a tester washer. It took me a few tries to get the hang of hammering (since that isn't an activity I usually participate it). It's also helpful to count how many times you hammer one letter, that way they will all look the same. For example I hit each of my letters 10 times, if you are stronger than me, (which you most likely are) it might not take as many hits for your letters to look right.
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| please excuse the poor phone picture :) |
To package them up for them up for the girls, I got little tulle wedding favor bags, and added a verse to the outside.
"Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9
Ta-Dah....they loved them! What meant even more to them was the fact that they came up with the word for their necklaces, they just didn't know what I was doing with the word! Our class this year has focused on the Israelites journey out of Egypt. The girls had to come up with a word that they felt summarized what we had learned all year, and they came up with "Faith". I hope that these necklaces will open up doors for my girls when they are asked about them, I hope they can share their faith, their testimonies and God's love with those around them.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God"
Ephseians 2:8
