DIY Holidays: Crafting Love

Make your Christmas presents this year. It’s more personal and will save you money.

 From a tin of homemade fudge to a colorful knitted scarf, your family and friends are sure to appreciate your hard work and thoughtfulness. You can also think bigger! Here are some ideas that  list many ways to knit, sew and quilt your way to a better world.

Socks For Soldiers knits socks for soldiers serving in the Middle East.
Stitch for a Cause knits, crochets, sews, and quilts blankets and infant apparel for local children's agencies. Based in Louisville, KY, USA.
Stitches From the Heart sends handmade clothing and blankets to premature babies across the nation. Based in Santa Monica, CA, USA.
Stitching Up The World knits, crochets and sews items to donate to a variety of organizations. Their main effort is items for chemotherapy patients in New Hampshire, Based in Candia, NH, USA.
Threads of Love provides clothing, blankets and other handmade articles for premature and sick infants. Threads of Love has chapters in the United States, Canada and London, England.
Tiny Stitches is based in Gwinnett County, Georgia and provides basic layettes to disadvantaged newborns and preemies in north Georgia. They also provide burial ensembles to families who lose an infant.
Ugly Quilts for the Homeless, My Brothers' Keeper.
Victoria's Quilts and Victoria's Quilts Canada. Quilts for cancer patients.

Craft Up a Storm to Help our Storm Survivors!

Here is my favorite resource that lists many ways to knit, sew and quilt your way to a better world. www.handcraftedwithlove.net:

      Socks For Soldiers knits socks for soldiers serving in the Middle East.

      Stitch for a Cause knits, crochets, sews, and quilts blankets and infant apparel for local children's agencies. Based in Louisville, KY, USA.

      Stitches From the Heart sends handmade clothing and blankets to premature babies across the nation. Based in Santa Monica, CA, USA.

      Stitching Up The World knits, crochets and sews items to donate to a variety of organizations. Their main effort is items for chemotherapy patients in New Hampshire, Based in Candia, NH, USA.

      Threads of Love provides clothing, blankets and other handmade articles for premature and sick infants. Threads of Love has chapters in the United States, Canada and London, England.

      Tiny Stitches is based in Gwinnett County, Georgia and provides basic layettes to disadvantaged newborns and preemies in north Georgia. They also provide burial ensembles to families who lose an infant.

      Ugly Quilts for the Homeless, My Brothers' Keeper.

      Victoria's Quilts and Victoria's Quilts Canada. Quilts for cancer patients.

Did you know your old prom dresses can become a kid's favorite blanket?

Do you remember Linus of the venerated Peanuts cartoon? He was a piano virtuoso who loved his blankie and also shows how universal that love for just the right soft cloth can be. My mom and aunts are amazing quilters and can seemingly take anything and make a gorgeous, collectible quilt from it. Even if you, like me, lack that “quilting gene,” you can blanket the world with your love and good intentions by collecting them for donation.  I put out a call and got a ton of nice comforters to donate to Project Linus,  www.projectlinus.org for gifting cozy quilts and oh-so-warm blankets to kids in shelters, hospices, hospitals and wherever the cloaking comfort of love might be needed. My mom recently made a quilt of some of my crazy outfits from the 80’s!

Blanket the World With Love

Crafting Kindness: Inspired Ideas for Helping Flood Victims in Texas:

Compassionate Crafts

Some of my friends love to knit and crochet. Everyone I know already has a colorful throw given to them. So now what to do with the products of all that handwork? Look no further!

www.woolworks.irg has a section on knitting and crocheting for charity listed by state, with links for organizations that make donations to U.S. troops; to centers for battered women and children; to Native Americans Reservations in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah; and to the homeless in cities all over the U.S.

www.newbornsinneed.org would love clothing and bedding items for newborn, sick, needy, and premature babies. You can donate blankets, hats, booties, and afghans. All they ask is that you use the softest yarn possible.

www.warmingfamiles.org is a 100% volunteer project that delivers donated blankets and other warm items to the homeless and displaced while strengthening families with their charity work. They supply to local shelters and nursing homes. 

Compassionate Crafts

Some of my friends love to knit and crochet. Everyone I know already has a colorful throw given to them. So now what to do with the products of all that handwork? Look no further!

www.woolworks.irg has a section on knitting and crocheting for charity listed by state, with links for organizations that make donations to U.S. troops; to centers for battered women and children; to Native Americans Reservations in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah; and to the homeless in cities all over the U.S.

www.newbornsinneed.org would love clothing and bedding items for newborn, sick, needy, and premature babies. You can donate blankets, hats, booties, and afghans. All they ask is that you use the softest yarn possible.

www.warmingfamiles.org is a 100% volunteer project that delivers donated blankets and other warm items to the homeless and displaced while strengthening families with their charity work. They supply to local shelters and nursing homes.

I Love Big Bags and I Cannot Lie

Bring reusable shopping bags when heading to the store. Whether you are grocery shopping or heading out with friends to splurge on clothes, take your own bags with you. Many stores have totes and reusable bags for a few dollars by the checkout lines and these are more durable, hold more objects, and last much longer than the flimsy plastic and paper bags we get from supermarkets, which are not biodegradable. Additionally, reusable shopping bags are a great way to “go green” and help the environment by using less plastic and cutting down less trees.

No Strings Attached

Write down the things that someone has given you, no strings attached, for which you are grateful. It can be an old sofa, some sound advice, or a lift to the airport. Now list ten things that you would like to give someone yourself, and see how many of those things you can cross off in a week.

Examples:

Drive a friend to the airport

Carry groceries for the mom with two toddlers to their car

Baby-sit for a relative

Buy a friend a cup of coffee
Weed your busy neighbor's yard
Take out the garbage for the 95 year-old next door
Check in on a widow(er) who doubtless feels alone on the holidays
Volunteer at a soup kitchen
Take the book you just read and loved to a retirement home and donate it
Even better, offer to read your beloved book to someone there.

Creating your path to inner peace:

Maggie Oman Shannon Champions the Importance of Creating  in a Busy and Often Chaotic World:

The author of Crafting Calm and interfaith minister shares her philosophical take on beauty.

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Maggie Oman Shannon, author of Crafting Calm

Ultimately, connecting to our creativity can help us connect to our spirituality. In other words, crafting can become a spiritual practice."

— Psych Central

(PRWEB) June 11, 2013

Interfaith minister Maggie Oman Shannon claims that cultivating and noticing beauty is far from frivolous. In her new book Crafting Calm, she relates personal stories and step-by-step how-to's on DIY projects that help people get in touch with their spiritual side. As she explains on Inspire Me Today, "There is always something lovely to be found, always; and the search for it or deliberate creation of it is never frivolous. John Keats was right: Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty." When most of the world is determined to shut down creativity in favor of being "realistic" or practical, Maggie Oman Shannon's is one of the lone voices encouraging people to put busyness on pause and focus on small, simple moments of peace and beauty.

Oman Shannon has also recently appeared on the the popular podcast Tranquility du Jour with Kimberly Wilson. The two experts discuss how to make time for crafting in the midst of a busy schedule, and talk about the importance of finding a few moments for peace. As a mother with a jam-packed schedule herself, Oman Shannon knows from experience how hard scheduling time for calmness can be. But, as she so boldly states, the active and mindful focus on beauty is a "political statement" and a "spiritual practice," and the inner peace it can bring is well worth the effort.

Rev. Maggie Oman Shannon, M.A., is an interfaith minister, spiritual director, workshop and retreat facilitator, and author of five books, including Prayers for Healing and A String and a Prayer: How to Make and Use Prayer Beads. In 2000, Maggie Oman Shannon founded The New Story, a coaching and consulting business focused on helping people create deeper meaning in their lives. Shannon currently has the honor of serving as Spiritual Director of Unity Spiritual Center of San Francisco. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and nine-year-old daughter.

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