Religious Archives - Yearning to Create

Crafts for the Sabbath Day – Primary Birthday Gifts

I look forward to the Sabbath – a day of rest. While attending Church and fulfilling church callings often makes for a busy Sunday, it is certainly different from the regular routine of what I do each day.

I love to make crafts and create things, and have had a craft business in the past and hope to again. So crafting for me is “work” and therefore I don’t do it on Sunday. The Sabbath is a day for me to rest from my labours. So if that crafting bug hits, I’ll only do it if it relates to my church calling.

So last Sunday, we had a craft fest of making Primary birthday gifts.

I became the Primary Secretary in January. These cute little birthday printouts were already planned and I know they came from online somewhere, but I don’t know where so I can’t link it. I didn’t create them, I’m just assembling them!

Lee and I in our living room work station. We were planning to put a “church movie” on from our lovely shelf of appropriate Sunday visual entertainment (there are a ton of great and inexpensive ones from the Distribution Center), but we just chatted instead – always the best thing!

That’s a tub of Ring Pops for the children and a bag of Lindor Chocolates for the teachers.

The scripture marking pencils are from the Distribution Center at $0.25 each.

“I Know the Scriptures are True” is the theme for this year.

Stick the pencil through the tag . . .

(I write the name and date of the birthday person on the back so we know who they belong to. Then they go in a little mailbox that gets opened during birthday time.)

and then . . .

. . . attach the Ring Pop with ribbon and curl the edges – Primary colours of course!

Teacher ones – glad I’m an adult!!! Seriously, do you know how hard it is for me to not eat these Lindors while I make them? I’ve only had one so far and that was because my baby got ahold of one (that was already attached to the card of course!) and started chewing it without removing the wrapper. Well, it was damaged now so I had to sacrifice myself and remove the wrapper and eat the damaged chocolate! The ring pops, however, hold no such temptation!!!

Aren’t they great? I’ve made 74 so far and that takes us to the end of October and then there will be 14 more after that. I made a big batch because we are going to be busy finishing up our house (at least enough finished so we can move in) and moving in the summer. Now they are all being stored in the Primary cupboard and that will be one less thing to think about and move.

So that’s how I craft on Sunday, my day of rest. Or sometimes I work on my Conference Project! I don’t blog on Sunday either, unless it’s my family blog because I consider that Family History and keeping records – it’s my journal writing with lots of pictures thrown in!

We encourage our children not to do school work on Sunday either. They are students, so homework and studying is their “work” and they need to “rest from their labours” as well. I know they have been blessed for their obedience to this commandment, especially during exam time when it is so tempting to study.

No one ever said obedience was easy, but it is always the right thing to do.

Easiest Quiet Book – Ever!!!

Made this quiet book for Kat when she was almost two, and now it’s being enjoyed by another child. We personalized it for Kat, but Mac doesn’t seem to mind that at all – she just enjoys looking at sisters book.

It’s the easiest thing ever and you can get your other kids involved in helping too.

First you have to buy an album – dollar stores are great for this!

This album is the size that fits one standard size photograph per page. My album is pretty thick (80 pages) because I wanted lots of original pages for her to look at. Hopefully we’d be half-way through church before she was finished it!

And now for the fun part – get creative and make pages! Dig out photographs, chop up old books, magazines, calendars, use the computer to prints pictures, phrases or quotes. Add coloured papers, stickers, stamps, die cuts. Tons of fun!!! I’ll share some of our pages to get your creative juices flowing . . .

You can see that she decided some artwork was needed inside the covers!A page autographed by Daddy!

I love the four cousins a few months apart!!!

Warning: Animal pages can be noisy if your child starts barking in the middle of church!!!

Or meowing!!!

Sisters in the various seasons.

Pages for all the colours. I chopped up a kids sticker book after they had finished it – had great clear, coloured pictures.

A page for each letter of Kat’s name.

I hope that gives you some ideas. We made this book and gave it to Kat for Christmas.

And if you want the truth, this Quiet Book keeps more than just the baby occupied in church!!!

Conference Project Time Again!

I love General Conference weekend, and it’s almost here! It’s an opportunity for us to listen to our living prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, and other Apostles as they lead and guide us in these latter days.

Do you remember “my Conference Project”?

This is how much was finished after the last conference six months ago. I love to work on this cross-stitch called “Lost No More” by Greg Olsen during conference. I find that my brain listens better when my hands are busy. When I’m looking down at this picture of the Savior, rather than at the distractions of what others around me might be doing, I absorb the messages of our church leaders better. But that’s just me! I’ve never been able to master the art of taking notes – I miss what they’re saying while I’m writing what they already said!

Anyway, I’m sure looking forward to this opportunity of attending Church with the whole world!

Conference Project

General Conference was over a week ago now, but I’ve still got lots of the wonderful messages floating around in my mind. When my Ensign magazine arrives next month, I’ll attack it with a highlighter pen. But if I need to review something sooner, I just go to this General Conference site and read or re-watch all the inspirational messages. Anyway, here’s how much I got done on my cross-stitch during conference!

I have taken it out of the hoop, so anything that is outside of that circle line is new. The sheep are appearing!

For some reason I was drawn to working on the purple flowers – must be a spring thing!!! The purple is all one colour, but do you know how many greens there are? Me either! But a lot of them were: one strand of this colour and one strand of that colour, put together to make one colour. I sure like that the background scenery is just a half cross-stitch – goes so much faster (not that I’m in any rush, I just like it to look like I have done something!).

I watched four sessions of conference – two on Saturday and two on Sunday, and they each last for two hours. Intermixed with the speakers is beautiful singing from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It truly is a spiritual feast!

So back to my project . . .

I have reached the edge by the purple flowers!!! But look at the finished picture and see that I have many years of conferences left to work on it! And look at all that thread! and all that space on the cloth!

But . . . on to a new conference topic . . .

Look at this cute little treat my Visiting Teachers dropped off before Conference.

And this one that Jen’s Activity Days Leader dropped off!

Such a cute idea! Such thoughtful people!!!

“Decide now to make General Conference a priority in your life. Decide to listen carefully and follow the teachings that are given.”

2012 Primary Birthdays

The theme for Primary this year is Choose the Right.

With so many choices facing our youth daily, we wanted to give them something for their birthdays that could be a visual reminder to help them remember to choose the right.

Our Primary second counsellor found these bottlecap zipper pulls somewhere and ordered them for us. Then she printed out all the CTR logos in so many cute colours, and cut them all out by hand and assembled them!!! (I hope she had a good movie to watch!)

I think the zipper pulls is a brilliant idea! The children can put them on their coats or backpacks or anywhere else, for that little reminder to always Choose the Right.

Still haven’t decided which colour I’m going to give myself when my birthday comes around (being the secretary has some perks!)

I enlisted some help from my Jen and we made little birthday gift bags for the children. Even did some housekeeping of stuff that was already in the Primary cupboard from years past – the picture of Christ with the children with the Articles of Faith on the back.

I was searching for clear bags but they were sold out. Good thing because I think the red, yellow and blue bags turned out exactly perfect for Primary!

This stash of 45 should last until the fall, and then we’ll do a recount and make some more.

This year we’re also trying something new – we recognize and sing to the birthday child in Primary, and give them a little coupon. They take their coupon to the Bishop after church and he gives them their special birthday bag and is able to have a little chat with them. The Bishop loves it, the children love it, and there are no distracting birthday things in Primary!

Forget-Me-Not Craft

When Pres. Deiter F. Uchtdorf gave his magnificent talk at the 2011 Relief Society Broadcast (you can read it here), I knew I needed to make myself a visual reminder of the things he said. I wanted to “Forget Not” his inspiring words!!!

And this is what I ended up with!

And I LOVE it!!!

I started with this really rough piece of 2×6 (I wanted a rough look!) and some 2×4’s. I sanded and spray painted and sanded a bit more. Made myself a forget-me-not flower template and printed my words out on the computer.

I’ve never tried the carbon paper method before but it worked really well. I just put a piece of carbon paper between my computer printed words and the wood, and traced around the letters. It left me a nice little outline of my letters on the wood. Now I just had to hand paint in the lines.

I only hand-painted my big words – the others were just printed on the computer and then distressed and mod podged onto the blocks of wood along with scrapbook paper.

I stained my blocks before I added any paper though – I’ve had bad luck with stain and mod podged paper before, so I always stain first, and it always turns out!!!

Isn’t it cute? I used burnt umber oil paint to colour my leaves and add a little more distressing.

And the blocks can be arranged many different ways, much to the children’s delight!

A close-up of the Forget-Me-Not flower (at least, my version of it – I googled it and there are tons of varieties of this little flower!!!) and the etchings.

And now it sits on my dresser and I see it whenever I leave my bedroom, reminding me daily of what I need to “Forget Not”.

Just four days ago, my guy grabbed the bottom piece – the one that says “The difference between good and foolish sacrifices” and brought it to me in bed. I was still in sleep mode at 8:20am – on the last Saturday of Christmas holidays! He suggest that my foolish sacrifice was lounging around in bed when I should be getting up and going to support my daughter at her basketball game. And he was right! I got ready in ten minutes and ate my breakfast in the car as we drove the half hour drive. We got seated just in time for the opening jump ball.

It was the right thing to do!!!

Special Message Blocks

My daughter Min made these blocks to display at her very first Young Women in Excellence evening (she’s now a second year Laurel working on her Honor Bee). She’d been twelve for a month and needed a project right away. Since we always have wood around, we decided on a 2×4 project. She picked a favourite phrase and then stamped it onto painted 2×4’s, and did some sanding and staining.

The neat thing about these blocks is that they’re reversible!

She chose a scripture for the other side:

Psalms 66:1 “Make a joyful noise unto God”

I like this scripture – it doesn’t say we have to be in tune or have perfect pitch – it just says to be joyful as we praise our Heavenly Father.

And I enjoyed seeing this in Min’s room while she was practicing her flute over and over and over and over and . . .

This fun stamp set came from Stampin’ Up – it’s one of my favourite alphabets! There are letters on each side of the blocks, and another set of matching numbers.

Now it’s time to get creative with the blocks and see what other phrases we can come up with . . .

Haha! Okay, maybe not!

This one’s much better . . .

. . . a beautiful reminder especially at Thanksgiving.

We all have so much to be truly grateful for.

Thanks for sharing your blocks Min!!!

Conference Project Update

Ahhh, there were lots of inspiring talks at Conference!!! Can’t wait to attack my copy of the Ensign with a highlighter, looking for special quotes that touch my heart that I can turn into a craft!!!

And yes, I got lots of cross-stitching time in! Took breaks only to stand up and sing the rest hymn and to nurse my baby. Here’s how it looked at the end of conference . . .

Getting lots of background done – it goes so much faster as lots of it is only a half-stitch.

Can you remember how much was done before the weekend? I can’t!!!

Oh wow – I got lots done!!! Good for me!

Look at all those stitches!!! It’ll be even more clear when I outline it someday with a dark backstitch.

And now I might dig it out and stitch a little for a day or two, but mostly it will sit until the next conference in six months. And just think – then I’ll be doing it in my new house!!!

“Faith In God” Blocks

About five years ago I was the Activity Days leader in our ward for girls aged 8 and 9. I came up with this wood craft because

1) I love wood crafts and,

2) because I wanted the girls to have something that could sit in their rooms and be pretty, but also remind them to have Faith In God. It needed to be something that wasn’t too challenging or messy!!! And because I could only fit eight around my table at once, we did it in two shifts.

I think the biggest challenge for the girls was choosing their three colours and button centers.

I cut the wood and made word stencils. All the girls had to do was their base coat, sanding and stenciling. I handled the blade for etching the flowers, and did all the staining.

Embroidery thread in the button centers looks extra cute too.

Aren’t they adorable? I got lucky – had two daughters in my group so they each got one, and they still proudly display them in their rooms.

Today my heart was touched as I attended the funerals of two fourteen year old girls in my town. There, on the table amidst all of Jorden’s pictures, awards and memories, were her Faith In God blocks that she had made in my Activity Day group so many years ago. Hers were light purple with pink words and white flowers. Their message stood out loud and clear on the table they were displayed on:

Faith in God.

And now that is what their families cling to – their faith in Heavenly Father and His great Plan of Happiness. And they know that they will see their beloved daughters again.

Creating at Conference

This is how my “Conference Project” looked at the end of eight hours of stitching through Conference. I’m almost ready to take it out of the ring, so progress is indeed being made – slow progress!!!

Even added a new colour – purple!!! Little purple flowers are in the east south east corner.

This tree part I’m working on is really hard, and I’m going to tell you why (whether you want to know or not!).

Take a look at this pattern (which is actually about double the size of the pattern I’m working off) . . .

. . . do you see all those horizontal three’s and eight’s? They are making me go cross-eyed as I try to follow them and count them. So I’ve done all the easy parts of the tree and now will try to fill in these two colours that are so similar you need good natural light to be able to tell the difference. Which makes me wonder why I’m so concerned with getting it right. Because seriously, who’s going to notice if I mess up some leaves in the tree?

Anyway, I love General Conference. I was wondering though, where Pres. Monson was in the first session. Doesn’t he usually do a welcome address? I was hoping he was okay. And then they announced him as a speaker and I felt so happy. “Oh good! He is here!” were my thoughts. And then he got up to speak with the cheeriest “Hello!” I’ve ever heard. I love our prophet!!!

We moved into our new home two weeks ago, and didn’t have our big screen set up yet (the family room wasn’t finished yet and who wants to get sawdust on their TV and couches). So we had nine people sitting around the computer in the office watching the broadcast on lds.org. Mac would disappear from time to time and it was much easier to watch conference (and cross-stitch) when she wasn’t around trying to climb onto my lap. Anyway, one time she came back into the office and pushed her way past seven people to get over to me by the window (need good light for cross-stitching that tree!). I looked down at her and let out a yell! She had decided to be creative too – using markers and her face, hands and arms as the canvas!

My thoughts were (in this order) “Oh no! I wonder what our new walls look like!”. Followed by “I sure hope that’s washable marker!”. And finally, “We gotta get a picture of that!”

Fortunately the walls were fine, the markers were washable and we got pictures! She cleaned up nicely – all the way to her ears. The worst part was: I can’t remember who was speaking and what they said! Luckily that’s easy to fix: re-watch it or read it!!!

Looking forward to April when the Conference Project continues . . .