MOPS Crafts

MOPS Craft Ideas

As our MOPS year wraps up, I thought I would share some of the crafts we did that were all pretty simple and fun and went over well with our MOPS moms in case you are a craft leader and looking for some ideas for your group next year or just looking for some simple craft ideas that also make cute gifts. Some of the crafts we did this year were

Chalkboard Picture holder 

I made mine a counter downer for when my husband has to travel.  Other ideas could be birthdays, what's for dinner, or just where you leave love notes for your spouse or child...and whoever it's for you can stick a picture on the top in the little coil of them...I wasn't on the craft team at that time so I'm not sure where they got the idea or what the prep was like but it was fun.

Sugar Scrub

We purchased plastic tubs for less than a dollar a piece here.  Then just had the girls make a basic sugar scrub with white sugar, oil and a few drops or essential oil (optional).  Then we had stickers they could add as labels and some glued a wide ribbon around the container to decorate.  

Handmade Envelopes

Up-cycling 

Our theme for this craft was up-cycling, so we had magazines, catalog pages and newspapers that we put out for the girls to choose from.  We also had templates for them to cut out their envelope and then quickly assemble.  We just made these at our discussion groups because it was so simple, but it was really fun, easy, and I heard a few of the moms had fun using their homemade envelopes to send cards to friends and family.  We also put out some scrapbooking stamps and punches with cardstock for them to embellish with.  The Restoration Hardware catalog made awesome envelopes!  Here is a link with templates and tips for making your own envelopes.

Holiday Christmas Clothespins

This was a really inexpensive craft for the group.  We got the idea from Blue Cricket Designs  I hot glued magnetic strips onto the backs of all the clothespins so they could be used as fridge magnets but as she mentions in the original post you could include a ribbon for them to be strung along a mantle for displaying Christmas cards.  What a fun little project!!!

I Spy Bottles 

(a sensory activity for the kids)

Two of our other craft leaders took on this project and dyed the rice, enough for 70-80 women!  Apparently they dyed it similar to the way you would dye easter eggs and then spread it out on tarps in their garage to dry.  Once it was dry they mixed it all together in a big plastic storage tub.  They also ordered clear plastic beef jerky containers Here but you could just recycle an clear plastic bottle too, using what you have on hand.  We then filled the containers with little things to spy such as foam letters, paper clip, buttons, a small butterfly bead, heart and airplane, penny, smiley face bouncy ball, a rubber band, star bead, frog and a marble. They made little labels with what is in side so the kids know what to look for and what they haven't found yet.  This one went over really well too, and the kids loved it!  We had it set up on 2 long tables, the moms came through, picked up a container, filled it 2/3 full with rice, then went through adding the various trinkets (we each bowl of things labeled with how many they should add such as 3 letters, or 1 of each for most of the other things), then they put some tacky glue on the inside of the lid and screwed it on.  Then used some clear packing tape and added the label and that was it!

Jars with Decorative Lids

from the Nate Burkus Show

So this project came from the Nate Burkus show and was really fun, you can see the tutorial here!  Those of us on the craft team took turns being in charge of each craft and our gal who presented this idea and took it on did awesome and she had to collect a lot of jars so we would have enough for everyone (70-80) and she pulled it off!  Thankfully her dad was also helpful in sanding, drilling the holes, and spray painting the lids although if you were to do this on your own, you could just use a nail and hammer to make the hole in the lid.  Also her dad was helpful in trimming the screws on the knobs, she picked up a lot of cute knobs at Hobby Lobby 50% off and the screws were really long.

Anyways, we had three stations set up so when the moms came in, they first went to the table with the knobs and picked out the knob they liked and then chose a station to create their jar.  The stations we had were candy, they could fill their jar with mints or taffy.  The next station was a beachy votive jar, filled 1/3 with sand (we bought a big bag of play sand) and then put a tea light candle in the middle and sprinkled in some small stones and sea shells (from the dollar store) around the votive.   The third station was to fill your jar with bath salt.  We had a tub of epsom salt and then set out the essential oils we had left over from the sugar scrub project we had done previously.  They added a few drops of essential oil to their salt and stirred.  Then they added a cute little scoop that she picked up at a party supply place meant for appetizers or something, but it worked really well in the jar with the bath salt.

This project was fun because there are so many ideas of what you can put in the jars...if you decorate a mason size jar or old spaghetti sauce jar, you could fill it with layered soup mix or cookie mix to give as a gift, smaller jars you can use for toothpicks, candy, teabags, sea shells, rocks, cotton balls, pencils (a great teacher gift) or whatever else you can think of!