Ideas for Operational Christmas Child Shoeboxes.

caravanlover

please help cant find it anywhere

Pink.

Hi caravanlover,

It's here. I'll add your post into it shortly.

Pink

caravanlover

fanx pink, you are a sweet !!! boxes ready but have no where to take them

:beer:

V.Lucky

On the Samaritans purse website there are links to knit some puppets:

http://www.samaritanspurse.uk.com/occ/Teddy_bear_hand_puppet.pdf

http://www.samaritanspurse.uk.com/occ/Knitted_Clown_Hand_Puppets.pdf

I started the clown one a few hours ago and it's nearly finished, they grow really quickly. It's just sewing them up that's the hard/boring part. They also suggest knitting two and they then double as mittens!

skintas_2

gp tp poundland or 99p shop. buy hair bands, brushs, and orgainsers, and dvds, packs of scoobies, blank cds, picture frame, disopalbe camera, body spray, hair gel, makeup like eyeshadows,

Sallys_Savings

skintas wrote:

gp tp poundland or 99p shop. buy hair bands, brushs, and orgainsers, and dvds, packs of scoobies, blank cds, picture frame, disopalbe camera, body spray, hair gel, makeup like eyeshadows,

I'm sorry but you shouldn't put hair gel or body spray into the boxes according to the literature I have received ( no shampoos, aerosals etc).

Also cds and dvds and disposable cameras aren't probably suitable for the kinds of children who will be receiving these.

---

The boxes I have filled with over the years have contained.....soft toys, yoyos, mini kites, pad books, colouring books, pencils, crayons, pens, felt tips, cars, aeroplanes, mini chess sets, balloons, hair bits and pieces, jewellery, sewing kits for making purses, kits for making finger puppets, skipping ropes, puzzles, games, jigsaws, hats, scarfs, gloves, stars that glow in the dark, small balls, small musical instruments (shakers, bells etc), pencil cases, sweets (not chocolate), toothpaste, toothbrushes, wrapped soaps, bouncy balls, cloth bags, puzzle maze books, puppets, little stamper sets, mcdonalds toys, polly pockets, friendship bracelets, sticker sets, badges,

When I'm around car boot sales I often look in the boxes for 10p / 30p items and theres normally bits and pieces you can pick up that are like new.

Everyone in our family make up a box each and we see who can make up the best box the cheapest (has to be everything adds up to £5 or less)..its getting to be pretty competitive now with everyone keeping their goodies a secret until the day we have to reveal the contents LOL

*fingers crossed* I've got a pretty good box together .......

A sparkly tesco skipping rope with tinsel tassles at the end 39p in the sale
A striped over the shoulder cloth bag with sequins on 20p car boot ..like new
Three bouncy balls....10p..car boot
Hat and glove set tesco sale.....59p
roll of fancy stickers...20p...car boot
Plain pad book...10p ..car boot
2007 lilac diary with pen and padlock....50p wilkos
Sweets...10p haribo bag....10p marshmallow...10p dolly mixture bag..10p lolly
toothbrushes..19p
toothpaste...29p
Bracelet...10p...carboot
Puzzle Maze book...10p...car boot
Pens and pencils ...20p

Total £3.86

Just crammed it all in the box and I can barely get the lid on
uuummm but every year I think I do really well and then I'm surprised about the contents of every ones boxes lol

Chipps

One thing that was suggested to us by someone who had been on one of the delivery trips, was to line the box with an extra piece of coloured wrapping paper.
This lady had seen children whose only home was a large metal container - so no windows or any decoration. The children carefully prised the wrapping paper off their boxes, smoothed it out, then using the sellotape it had been stick with, put it up on the inside of the container for decoration. Some had silver shiny paper in their boxes, so they used it as a mirror.
She says she always includes extra paper now, & lines the lid with a sheet of shiny silver card or paper having seen that.
I don't think we can imagine that kind of poverty, our children have so much we take for granted.

Hootie19

Without being patronising, where do these boxes go to? I want to do some teenage boy ones in particular, as I've heard that they're the ones they get fewest of, and I've got two teen boys of my own, so it's close to home for us.

I was thinking about looking in the charity shops for some Anthony Horowitz type books, but if the boxes aren't going to an English speaking country, then it obviously won't be a very good idea.

Also, I was wondering if you are "allowed" to put battery operated stuff in, or if that's a no-no. I was thinking about a torch or a watch, or a small travelling alarm clock, but I don't even know if you can get wind up watches any more!

I saw a great wind up torch/radio/mobile phone charger in Peacocks the other day, which I thought would be brilliant. (Obviously the mobile phone charger bit would be redundant, but the torch and radio I thought would be excellent). Needless to say, when I went back to get some today, there were none left :-(, but I'll keep looking.

I did buy:

face flannel - £0.69 (not the cheapest, I know, but it felt nice quality, and I wouldn't want to be washing with a piece of sandpaper, so why should they?)
bars of soap - 6 bars of Imperial Leather for £1.48
toothbrush - £1.99 (on bogof, so got 2 of them)
toothpaste - £0.65 (50% extra free tubes)
chocolate coins (before realising they're not allowed chocolate) - £0.99 bogof
clear plastic toothbrush case - £0.59
clear plastic soap holder - £0.59
clear plastic nail brush - £0.49
2 x Berol handwriting pens - £0.99
9x7 plastic covered, spiral bound notebook - £2.25 (bit pricey I guess, but it's a nice one)
solar powered calculator - £0.99
maths set (protractors, set square etc) - £0.79
dominoes - £0.99
plastic slinky (don't care how old you are - everyone loves slinkies :-D) - £0.59

And again, at the risk of sounding a bit dim, where are the boxes going - I'm thinking if it's going to somewhere like one of the African countries, then perhaps hat/gloves/scarf set wouldn't be so useful to them, whereas if they're going to Eastern Europe, they'd probably be well received.

Having just had a quick browse at https://www.hawkin.com, I think I'm going to make the effort to go to hell tomorrow (i.e. Milton Keynes shopping centre!) and see what I can pick up there that might be age appropriate - and fun.

bargain_babe

My girls make these boxes up every year and take them to Brownies and Guides who then pass them on, if you want to make a box but don't know where to take it, try a local church group as they will probably know what to do with it.

Some of your posts have brought tears to my eyes. My girls always put a lot of thought into their boxes, but after reading about the paper inside the box and what the children do with it, I will have to do this too. I hope all these children at least have a nice christmas.

gingin_2

We have ours packed up aimed at a boy and girl under 7 as those are the age of my 2.

I picked up some bits from the tesco's party sections and also my tesco's has a brilliant £1 section, nothing I have bought cost over a £1

We have for the boy

A pack of cars, a pack of dinosaurs
Toothbrush, toothpaste
Colouring pencils, pens, notepad, pencil sharpener and rubber set.
A couple of bouncy balls, a yoyo.
A cuddly dog
Sweeties
Gloves

For the girl

A mirror
Some hair scrunchies
A bead set
A little plastic jewellery set
A cuddly unicorn
Similar stationary items
sweeties
Toothbrush, toothpaste
Gloves
Bouncy balls and a yoyo

DO you think I can take them to my Salvation army charity shop?