Close to My Heart is SUCH A TREAT!

One of my very favorite things to create with my Close to My Heart Products are what I like to call 'Treat Treasures'! Do you give hand crafted treasures to your loved ones? As a Christian Mom it is my desire to raise our son to be a servant to others.  At the age of 9 and having Autism it is sometimes a struggle for Cody to learn as well as his daddy and I to demonstrate.  I enjoy-more than anything-having him join me in my craft studio to create treat treasures for our family, Sunday school classes, or friends.  He enjoys getting messy with mom's things and I enjoy spending quiet time with him doing something that I love!  

An experience that we had last fall (and one that I enjoy re-telling) will remain in my heart forever...My husband and I, our son Cody, along with my Sister & Brother-in-law as well as their two children Koel and Riley created a project that we plan to make a yearly tradition for our families.  It was such a small gesture yet received BIG response...I am getting goosebumps thinking of that day all over again...I really have no idea where the idea came from and truth be told it was a pretty silly idea.  The response was very humbling for us all.  We baked all kinds of cookies, popped popcorn, and sorted candies into small plastic baggies and  added a special touch...

We filled our baskets and headed to our nearest Wal-mart, about 45  minutes away, on Thanksgiving day! We thought, "when better to show appreciation to others than during one of the most hurried, busiest, and Thankless days of the year?!"...Preparing for Black Friday! So, we and our kiddos headed inside and every employee we saw working that morning received a baggie, and more importantly a Smile and our appreciation.  I would have NEVER believed how it touched some of them.  Some accepted our small gift with a bit of a "dumb founded" look on their faces later to walk away, turn back around and shout "Hey, Thanks!!" and others light up right away in such a way that my heart skips a beat just thinking about it.  Most we left smiling, some wanted to take our kiddos' picture, and ALL were extremely thankful.  I think the Cashiers in the front of the store were most effected, I can assume they had already had a rough day of disrespectful customers thus were the most appreciative and shocked.  We heard the most delightful things from them, "Your children are precious little servants", "This is the sweetest thing I've ever heard of", and one young lady was especially effected as she went to hug me I saw tears streaming down her face and she said "No one has ever shown me love as your family has today".  It was such a humbling experience for us, I remember the moment when I turned around to look at my husband and brother-in-law and noticing they had lumps in their throats and mist in their eyes thinking that I have NEVER experienced a "High" as I had at that very moment.  We passed out well over 100 baggies that morning, we gave one to EVERY single employee working that day, and I feel certain that even with our smallest of gifts we BLESSED over 100 people as well.  It was an incredible day for us! We are already planning on doing it again Thanksgiving 2013, this time Bigger and Blessing even more.  Have you ever seen a bunch of PROUDER kiddos? :)  

I would LOVE to see some of your 'Treat Treasures'! better than that I'd love to hear a story of how you have Blessed others!....post a link for me please (I'm new at the Blogging-obviously-so I'm sure there is a better way to share our photos & information but I'd love to see and hear them!)  

I am so Thankful that Close to My Heart makes creating our 'Treat Treasures' Faster, Simpler, Easier! 

Blessings, Friends! :)