God's Promises Key chain: Abraham Craft

"Look toward the heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." And he (Abraham) believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. --Genesis 15:5-6

 I love the story of Abraham. I guess I compare a lot of the things in his life to mine. Obviously, my family never had to wander around in a tent until God told us to stop (not really, anyway), but we did have to pick up our things and move quite a few times. And then, I can empathize with Sarah and him as they waited and waited and waited for that baby. I'm so grateful God didn't make me wait until I was in my 90s before blessing us with a child. Whew!
As this lesson came up in my curriculum this time, I remembered a few years ago when I taught this. I got the brilliant idea to make key chains or bracelets or zipper pulls with a piece that would remind us that even if it took more than 20 years, God would keep the promises He had made us. Here's how we did it. I have a neat little Shrinky Dink machine like this one. I caught it on sale at a craft store one time and picked it up just for my Bible class. If you don't want to spring for a fancy machine, a toaster oven works just as well. Just buy the special paper and follow the directions. Shrinky Dinks are so fun because you do whatever design you want on the special paper and then watch it magically shrink into the harder plastic piece that works for a bead. I printed out several memes that I had found online that said "God keeps His promises" and printed them out for the students to use for tracing purposes. They picked whichever one they wanted and colored as desired. We then trimmed the piece and punched the hole -- **if you don't do this before you shrink it, you can't do it afterward and it won't work as a bead**. My co-teacher manned the shrinking machine and I helped the kids string their beads together and tie the knots to finish up. We used star beads to remind us of what God told Abraham -- that his family would be as many as the stars. This craft always goes over well with the kids, and while it takes a lot of time, it's something different that should last for quite a time to come.
Have you ever done something like this in class before?