LOL! LAUNDRY BAGS:

Hello there! I wanted to share a fun project that we've been working on at our church. About 6 months ago we started a small group, which basically started as a Bible Study, and evolved into an outreach ministry to our community. We named the ministry LOL!, which stands for Love Out Loud. Under the LOL! umbrella we formed a group who goes to a local laundromat every month and pays for people's laundry. We call it Loads Of Love.

Right now we have our Vacation Bible School going on, and our awesome church got behind this ministry and have been having the kids make these fun little laundry bags as one of the craft projects they make each night. The bags are filled with laundry pods made from detergent, white vinegar & hydrogen peroxide to add a boost to each load. See the recipe at the end of this post if you're interested in trying them out!

The kids made the pods and bagged them up and I made the tags. I remembered this fun shirt idea from Stampin' Up! several years ago, and knew it would work perfectly for this project. I found some red construction paper at Hobby Lobby which measured 9" x 12". I needed the extra length to get 2 sets of instructions to a sheet. I cut them down to 8 1/2" wide to fit in the printer.

As mentioned, I got 2 sets of instructions from each piece of construction paper, and they measured 8 1/2" x 5 5/8". Kind of a funky number, but that's what's needed to get them to fold right. I scored each vertically at 1 3/8" and 4 1/4", and folded them so the edges butt up to each other. I then folded it in half. I folded the top corners down to form a collar. I turned the shirt over, measured 1 1/2" from the fold line and drew a mark with a pencil. I then folded from that mark diagonally to the corners to form the sleeves.

I used the Christmas set Snow Place to stamp the buttons using Basic Black Archival ink. We found some fun clip art and printed it off along with the small tags for the shirts. I cut them out and glued them onto the shirts. I used a 1/8" Circle Handheld Punch to punch out the holes and the kids thread them with ribbon and attached to the bags.

We'll take these fun little Loads of Love bags with us to the laundromat next month and sit them on top of all the machines for anyone who wants to use them. Can't wait to try them out! See the recipe below:

LAUNDRY PODS:

4 cups powdered laundry detergent
1 t. white vinegar
1 t. hydrogen peroxide
*With gloves, mix well with hands. Place into plastic ice cube trays or plastic molds. Press firmly into trays/molds and let sit overnight. Pop out and add 1 pod to small load, 2 pods to medium load and 3 pods to large load.

And in case you're wondering, we do a lot of Laughing Out Loud as well:) Thanks so much for stopping by!