I just wanted to post and let you all know about the fun activity that I did with my grandchildren.  I was experimenting with ideas for Operation Christmas Child, a program that our church is involved in each year, and found this.  Usually we do tie-dye tee-shirts and they always turn out really great as well as being a ton of fun, but this year we are going to do something new.  My grandchildren and I started out with solid color tee-shirts (we had green) then we hunted through the yard for leaves of all shapes and sizes.  We laid the tee-shirts down flat outside, in the sunshine, and then they placed the leaves all over them.  I had previously mixed up a water/bleach solution in a spray bottle and when they had their leaves arranged they sprayed the shirts with the solution.  Then we just let the bleach and the sun do the work.  When the shirts are dry you remove the leaves and you get the most wonderful, almost camouflage like pattern!  All the grandbabies love both the activity and the tee’s, and I can’t wait to introduce it to all of the kid’s who help out in the Operation Christmas Child program at our church.

After we finished our leaf pattern shirts I realized that you could really use almost anything to make a print out of, like letter magnets for names or messages, or school supplies for a themed tee,  shells for an ocean shirt, anything that wouldn’t be damaged with the bleach water. We tried an alternative to tie-dying, called "reverse dying"  (that's the shirt in the first photo below), which involves buying a colored tee then tying (actually rubber banding) it just like you would a white shirt that was going to be tie-dyed,  then you run it though your washing machine with bleach water, and it comes out in a reverse tie-dye which is a fun, and different way to do the project.  These are all great activities for the whole family and I encourage you to try them out!  The photo on the right, below, show some of the shirts they kids tie dyed  last year.

I just wanted to put a little info in here about Operation Christmas Child, just in case any of you aren’t familiar with it.  It is a program geared at bringing gifts to children around the world that other wise would have no way to celebrate the Christmas season.  Gifts are sent in shoeboxes, filled full with items they can use, wear, or have fun with. There is more information available at the Samaritan's Purse web site, along with guide lines on the shoeboxes and idea’s of what to fill them with.