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.

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!