KugAlls

DIY Stocking Hanger

2016-01-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

I made this Christmas stocking hanger for our family last Christmas as our mantle was looking a bit overcrowded!! I used wood for my back board, but mdf would be fine to use, and cheaper too. My wood measures approximately 81cm x 22cm, with a thickness of 2cm. I sanded it all down just to get rid of some rough patches and make it nice and smooth, and then applied 3 coats of my chosen colour. Then using a Sharpie paint pen I wrote all the wording on which was easy peasy as I used the same technique as my 'Silent Night Christmas board'

As I was shaking my Sharpie paint pen to get more paint on the nib, I ended up having some lovely white 'snow' fall onto my board, so then I had to adapt what I'd planned and do the same all over, which was rather fun! Luckily this crafting mistake didn't end up in tears but I think it actually gave it that finishing touch.

Once the writing was all dry, I attached two sawtooth hangers to the back a few inches from either end, and then screwed in the hooks evenly onto the front of the board....Ho Ho Ho our stocking hanger was finally complete!!

A Very Happy and Belated Merry Christmas to you all,

Love

Young Women's Camp Cup Song

2015-07-06T14:41:00.001-07:00

I loved the cup song from the first time I heard it...and years on, it's still one of my favourites. I've never quite mastered how to do it mind you, I normally end up slapping myself and banging the cup all over the place, lol!!! But it's on my bucket list so one day I WILL master how to do the cup 'routine'.

I wrote these words to the tune for our Young Women's (YW) camp and the girls really enjoyed singing it and quite a lot of the younger YW had never done it before.

Even when we had 'down time' the YW enjoyed getting the cups out and singing different songs, practicing and teaching each other.

Here's the video that I made showing our YW doing the 'YW Camp Cup Song'...unfortunately the audio isn't too clear to make out what they are singing, but it was fun putting it together...and one day I will do a video of a couple of the YW singing it, hopefully some time soon?!

And I thought you might like the words to the song too...I know, I'm too kind, lol??!?

Enjoy singing your heart out while tapping n slapping those cups.

Nautical Boodle Headbands

2015-06-16T02:17:00.000-07:00

Another post about what we got up to at Young Women's (YW) Camp. We found lots of great headbands on Pinterest, but to make the ones we liked, we needed to use 2 t-shirts and cut them up into strips.....errrr too much to ask the girls to bring 2 shirts to camp to cut up; too expensive for us to buy them new and would take far too long for all the girls to cut up!!

Bing!!! Inspiration came....use boodles!! Boodles is t-shirt material but in a nice long, thin thread, so perfect and soooo much quicker and easier for all our girls to make their headbands, yay, result!!

Boodles are available from Hobbycraft (UK)

We put all the different colours out and let the girls choose their own combination, some went for just 2 but some chose 4 colours (3 strands of each).

They cut their 12 chosen threads to 40", don't worry about them being exact as they get trimmed later....and yes it's quite long but everybody's head size is different, so better to go bigger than smaller when doing a project like this.

We then followed the instructions off the video link below....I had watched this video several times before camp but I found by the time I got there and with all the rushing round etc I'd forgotten exactly how to do it, lol, so I'm glad we had wi-fi available so I could watch it with the girls the first time and have this lovely lady talk us through it....

I practiced the nautical knot using just 2 strands and ended up making a ring, lol...you could easily use 4 lengths of boodle and make a nautical bracelet too :)

And if you've got any left, in my house the boys like to tie it round their heads as it instantly makes them into ninjas (?!!?!), and my girls love plaiting them and making bracelets. Lots of people crochet with boodles and make some beautiful things.

Have fun creating and making with boodles.

Pearls of Wisdom Poem & Bracelet

2015-06-08T04:14:00.001-07:00

For Young Women's (YW) camp this year we went with a nautical theme, to go with this years Mutual theme. So of course, we tried to find everything that was 'sea worthy' for our YW camp 'cruise'.

We found these cute pearl bracelets and tutorial on 'thecraftyblogstalker' so we bought hemp twine and a load of pearls, with the idea that the girls would share 'pearls of wisdom' each night to everyone or to a particular YW (it was really lovely and quite entertaining too). With each 'pearl of wisdom' shared they would get a 'pearl of wisdom' for their bracelet.

We bought the 1mm hemp twine thinking that would be small enough to fit through the holes and a selection of different sized pearls. We ended up having to buy 0.5mm twine, and we found only the 8mm and 10mm pearl beads fitted comfortably on the twine (I wriggled a metal skewer in the holes if they were a bit blocked) for our bracelets.

We gave each girl four strands of twine already knotted (as described in the blog tutorial link) at the beginning of camp, but in the end the girls made all different sorts of bracelets....unfortunately this is the only one I got a photo of.

And here's the poem I wrote to help the girls catch the vision of what we'd like them share....the idea came to me during the midnight hours, or as we like to call it in our Presidency 'creative hour' lol!?!

(poem can only be used for personal use)

Enjoy hearing and sharing those pearls of wisdom.

'Kinder' pillow treat

2015-06-03T13:57:00.002-07:00

I don't know how many times I've bought the 'Kinder' eggs, chocolate etc before, and it was only the other week that I noticed (while I was trawling the sweetie aisle to get some inspiration for YW camp) that it actually says kinder!!! Doh! How have I missed that all these years!??!

So I then rushed home with my chocolate stash determined to find a quote from General Conference that used the word kinder, and instantly loved (and remembered) this quote from Gordon B. Hinckley.

I then used glu dots to stick the chocolate to the card so that the Young Women could keep the handout after camp (hopefully some of them did??), and then popped them into a sealable cellophane bag. Job done....and now the agonizing wait to give them to the girls!!

The girls loved them, and were the same as me about not noticing that it actually said 'kinder', glad I wasn't the only one, lol!?!

Just right click on image above

& 'save as' to your computer

(for personal use only)

Now that our camp is over, there will be more Young Women's camp ideas coming your way soon....seriously can't wait for next year, I love our girls!!

20+ Ideas for memorizing the Articles of Faith

2015-04-01T15:03:00.001-07:00

Memorizing the 13 Articles of Faith can seem like a mammoth task to anybody - old or young...I personally still get a bit muddled up trying to quote #10!!

So a while ago I printed up the Articles of Faith on A4 card for my kids and laminated them (of course!), they are now regularly used around the home - in bedrooms/kitchen/before family scripture study/FHE to help and remind us of them.

Recently I made some smaller cards which have the first letter of each word each of the Articles of Faith, this is great to help the older children, and super for popping in your Sunday bag to help keep them entertained during sacrament.

Thought I'd look online and find some other great ideas to help my children (and me) become better at learning and memorizing them...lots of links & pictures are below.

Articles of Faith Memory Quest -- lds.org

Articles of Faith flashcards -- All Things Bright and Beautiful

1st Article of Faith -- LDS scripture study for kids

8th Article of Faith -- LDS Games

6th Article of Faith crossword -- lds.org

Articles of Faith cards -- Latter-day chatter

Article of Faith posters -- A year of FHE

Cross Connections: 10th Article of Faith -- lds.org

13th Article of Faith fill in blanks -- LDS Games

4th Article of Faith maze -- lds.org

4th Article of Faith -- lds.org

1st Article of Faith -- LDS Games

Articles of Faith bookmark and other activities -- 3 dinosaurs

2nd Article of Faith crossword -- lds.org

Activity Book:Article of Faith -- LDS Greats

Articles of Faith keys -- Finch Family Games

11th Article of Faith crossword -- lds.org

Teaching the Articles of Faith -- The Giggly Girls Guide

(LOADS of great ideas to help learn AoF in the link above)

Articles of Faith Jeopardy -- Shannon Makes Stuff

4th Article of Faith poster -- lds.org

Articles of Faith Punch Card -- about.com

1st Article of Faith coded message -- lds.org

Articles of Faith badges -- about.com

Articles of Faith Ice Cream Chart -- about.com

Hope you and your family enjoy learning the Articles of Faith

again and again and again :)

DIY Cup-a-Soup

2015-03-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is soup-er quick and soup-a-licious...I couldn't resist it sorry!!?!

We have a lovely old gentleman who lives across the road from us, sadly his wife of 70 years passed away a few years ago. Over the years that we have lived here (7 to be exact), we have grown to love Mr & Mrs Yates, they have always be so kind to us and love having conversations with our kiddies.

We regularly take Mr Yates some dinner, cakes and drawings...my kids love to draw some very interesting things & feel that Mr Yates should be the recipient (maybe this should be the feature of my next post, lol!?).

Anyways, I had some large clear disposable tumblers left over from something and spied them the other day when I was making soup. And lo and behold the literal 'cup-a-soup' was born, haha!!

I poured the soup in, covered it with clingfilm and instantly a platform for the roll to sit on is made, ta da!!!

Now cover the roll and hey presto you have a soup dinner ready to be transported to neighbours, friends, family with no worry of having to track down your soup bowls.

And if it's still hot when received, the recipient can dunk away with their roll, drink/slurp/spoon the remains and then put the tumbler in the recycling bin = no washing up (particularly handy if the person is poorly).

Well that's all the inspiration for today...probably loads of people have already discovered this phenomenon, but I was amazed by it so it just had to be shared, lol!!

Soup is back on the menu :)

DIY Sharpie Tea Towel

2015-03-02T03:53:00.000-08:00

A quick, simple yet thoughtful gift to give to family, friends, teachers etc....and its ready in five minutes, well if the kids cooperate!!?!

Materials needed

Sharpie pens (or fabric pens)

Plain tea towel

Lots of hands to trace!

I drew round all the kids hands (preferably get an adult to do the outline as the material needs to be pulled tight so that the pen doesn't go off at random angles!!) and then they wrote their names inside their handprint.

I traced the phrase 'many hands make light work' from a printout I whipped up...and from experience I made several different font sizes on the one sheet so that I could find the right fit without having to go back and forth to the laptop/printer :)

We gave these to each our mothers for Christmas, they'd also be great for Mothers day. Hey, why not let the kids go wild drawing any sort of pictures on a tea towel, although I think an embroidery hoop might come in handy to keep the material taut for them as they draw...we wouldn't want any tears now ;)

General Conference Oct 2014

2014-10-04T15:18:00.002-07:00

I can't believe how quickly Conference comes around!!

Yesterday my lovely friend (who's three days away from having her sixth child!!) invited a group of us to her house and let us loose on all her craft items to make conference bags/activities for our kids...it kept mine quiet for the majority of one of the sessions which was brill :)

I had Conference Booklets printed for our notes this year, even my four year old was keen to have one....he's filled pages with lots of lovely letters. My six year old was chuffed to bits with his drawing of a Minecraft scene on the back cover...well at least they are listening??!?

After Conference I was just downloading some of my photos off my phone and spotted this one, and thought it went perfectly with a quote from President Uchtdorf's talk.

Can't wait for tomorrow :)

Temples are more than stone and mortar

2014-07-10T12:42:00.001-07:00

Boo hoo, ohhh how I missed blogging!!

Recently I've been extra busy with family, work and church, but hopefully over the summer (if the kids will let me) I'll be able to start sharing some of the things I've been up to recently.

But in the meantime, here's a photo I took of the Preston Temple with a great quote from Thomas S. Monson.

I'll be in touch soon, woohoo!!

Daniels in the Lion's Den FHE

2014-01-31T15:33:00.000-08:00

My 7 year old daughter organised our lesson for FHE (Family Home Evening) and she did an amazing job, and yes, she did it all by herself!! It was sooooo simple, but it was really effective and worked for ALL our family aged from 12 to 3 years...and yes, my husband and I are older than 12 years of age, but maybe not mentally, haha!! ;)

This is the script that she read to explain her lesson, in case you can't read it I've typed it out below, spelling mistakes and all...

'Ok. So this is a kind of game but it is a listening game so you have to listen very carefuly.

So if I say lion you get down on the floor with your hands and feet, and ROAR as loud as you can,

but not that loud so you crack a window.

And the next rule is when I say Daniel you sit down if your a boy and when you sit down you cross your legs.

And if I say King all the girls act posh like a queen, but you can't be one because their weren't a girl in the story.'

Love it!!! She inserted an additional action for when she said 'Daniel', the boys would have to fold their arms (as well as crossing their legs) so that it would look like they were praying.

She then held up the picture from our Gospel Art Box to show everyone, and then commenced reading the story that is printed on the back....and that was it (told you it was simple).

It was heaps of fun and everybody listened very intently to the story, so that they wouldn't miss out any of the acting. Our lions got a tad ferocious at one point during the reading and attacked daddy, haha...and by the end of the story everyone was acting out all the parts named.

She was really proud of herself at the end of it all, and so she should be. It really was such a lovely night and everybody loved her lesson and EVERYBODY got involved, no tears tonight (woohooo!), just lots of KugAlls!!

ps I've checked store.lds.org and I can't find the Gospel Art Box listed anymore (the Gospel Art book doesn't have the words on the back of the pictures)....but you could use the script from this Old Testament Stories (it's not as long though).

Bespoke Notepads

2014-01-27T13:26:00.000-08:00

At Christmas I was trying to think what we could give to our children's teachers that would be 'homemade' but wouldn't take too much time as I was really busy with several large assignments at church.

So the cogs got rolling, and I thought why not design an image on photoshop and then get it printed on a notepad.....and of course I got carried away with myself and ended up making quite a few of them (and I'm still getting bespoke orders now!).

I then attached a small pencil using ribbon or twine and then put the pad in a cellophane bag, to some I put some adhesive magnetic strip so that they could be used on their fridge.

You could easily use a word processor to design something bespoke for a teacher, family or friend....or for you!!

These notepads have been great for Christmas presents for teachers, friends and families...and have helped put a few extra pennies in my pocket too :)

If you live in the UK, here's my facebook page where you can buy these notepads along with other things that I've created...the page is called KugAlls Kreations.

I also have a facebook page to go alongside this blog (I haven't got around to finding out how to do a facebook icon to this blog yet), so for now here's the link to KugAlls.

P.E.G.S. bag

2014-01-07T15:21:00.000-08:00

Here's another gift that I gave at Christmas, this time to my mum :)

Being one of eleven children and number eight in line, my mum has received lots of lovely presents over the years and has a house full of Willow Tree figures (I would have a small collection, but I'm currently down to one!...my kids love looking/playing/touch them, oh well).

So I tried to think of something that my mum would use most days, that would make her smile, and let her constantly know how much we love her, especially as we are a five hour drive away!!...Basically, I wanted to give her a big KugAll in a pressie.

And hey presto, the cogs got working and I came up with the idea for a P.E.G.S. bag...Positive Expressions Generate Smiles!!

click here for to download

P.E.G.S. image

You need to print the image onto a medium weight fabric, by ironing freezer paper to the back to help stiffen it up so it will go through your printer like a piece of paper...here's the link to my post 'How to print on fabric using your printer'.

I was sooo excited when I was making this and then getting the kids to write on the pegs what they loved about Grandma, and of course I had to write on some too...I couldn't believe I was having one of my excited, clapping my hands with joy moments over a peg bag and some pegs, haha!!

My mum absolutely loved it, and she can't wait for this lovely English weather to brighten up so that she can use them...and if that doesn't happen any time soon, I'll be making her an indoor washing line for her Christmas present next year, haha!! ;)

Quick and Easy tips for PEGS bag...

buy a peg bag, print off the PEGS image onto your fabric, and then sew on the front.
buy a peg bag, and use a sharpie pen to write the phrase on.

When I count my blessings plaque

2014-01-07T13:16:00.001-08:00

I originally saw this quote at a ladies house I was visiting with one day, and thought it was lovely, and thought it would make a perfect gift for a member of my family.

I decided to make one, but of course being me I had to give it a teeny tweak....I used MDF for the base (18mm thick), and thought chalkboard paint would be perfect for where the numbers have to be written on (making it very easy to change as the family grows).

I used the same process for this plaque as I did for my previous Christmas DIY plaque (click on this link for tutorial), so it was fairly quick and easy to do.

The only change was when I was doing the chalkboard hearts. I still chalked the outline from a heart template and then just painted it in with three coats of chalkboard paint (it doesn't take too long for each coat of paint to dry). I then rolled up a stick of chalk in some white tissue paper and tied it with a pretty ribbon.

I'll be making another one soon for my grandmother, I'm thinking that I will use a lighter shade of paint for that one....and of course she will need an additional heart so that she can write in the amount of great-grandchildren!!

Don't forget to count your blessings, whatever they may be :)

Marking your General Conference Ensign

2013-12-26T16:03:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd post the way I mark my General Conference Ensign...bazaar I know, but I might do something that's a bit different to everybody else??!?!

I'm a bit of a sucker for the good old paper copy, none of this technical stuff when it comes to studying and making notes.....I love the feel of the magazine in one hand and a pen poised ready in the other. Don't get me wrong, I do use the 'technical stuff' a lot for lessons, FHE, listening to as I fall asleep of a nighttime, so here's the link for all the General Conferences that are currently available online.

Right back to my paper copy of the Ensign....firstly, I write my name on the contents page (we buy copies for all the family, so they all need to be clearly labeled in our house, it also helps you not to lose it at church too!!).

Secondly, I find the email/post from my Stake Presidency telling me what talks will be studied for 'Teachings for our Times' during Relief Society/Priesthood, and then I label the talks on the contents page with the month written next to them. It makes for a great reference for future months.

When I read a talk, I mark it as I would my scriptures by underlining, cross referencing etc....I also write goals, ideas in big writing in the margins.

Then on completing the talk I tick it at the end (I find this helps as sometimes I don't mark bits of the talk and with distractions from the kids etc it helps me know that I've definitely finished it, lol!).

I also circle the page number of the talk I've completed on the contents page so that I can clearly see what talks I have read and have yet to read.

I know its not much, but that's it....just thought I'd share it with you all :). Please feel free to share ideas and suggestions of things you do too, I'd love to hear them.

Santa's Post decoration

2013-12-17T13:05:00.000-08:00

These are super cute and very addictive to make, so watch out as your tree may get covered in them!! It's a really simple activity for the kids to do to and is ready in minutes.

It all started because I had a massive bags of these large lollipop stick 'scraps' leftover from a recent craft project at my church....I was determined to use them in some way, and hey ho, after a little bit of playing, failing and trying again I came up with this idea!! And just a tip, we found it was a lot cheaper to buy a box of 100 waxing strips than it was to buy 50 large lollipop sticks..they are basically the same thing :)

Cut your large lollipop sticks up to roughly 3cm in length, don't worry about making them exactly the same size as they look better being slightly different lengths. You will need to cut five 'letters'. Make one 'letter' look like the front of a letter, then on another one look like the back of an envelope. Leave the other three blank as you won't seem them.

Then use four strips of thin double sided tape to stick your five 'letters' together, just stack them up without worrying about them being perfectly lined up (it looks like a more authentic stack). Put the front letter at the top of the stack and the back of the envelope drawing facing out at the back.

Wrap your letters up with some thick bakers twine, I'm sorry I didn't measure my twine, but the length of twine depends on where you will be hanging them, so play around with it and see what looks best...they look really cute on a small christmas tree.

Ho Ho Ho!!!

DIY Christmas Plaque

2013-12-16T14:52:00.001-08:00

This plaque is really simple to do and hopefully my tutorial will explain it quickly and easily for you too!?! There is a pdf file at the end for the words, and a link for where I got the Bethlehem Star from too.

Before I start, I've only tried this technique with darker backgrounds as it won't work for lighter ones. However, I will suggest other ideas of what you could use instead, but until I do one myself, I will not know what works best until I try it.

1. Choose what you want to have on your plaque, ie words, symbols, pictures etc. I chose to do 'Silent Night, Holy Night' for Christmas. Choose the fonts, size etc and no worries if it doesn't look like the end product, you can cut the paper up so that you can locate them where you want them to be.

2. Make sure your words fit on your chosen plaque before you start. For my 'base' I chose MDF (18mm thick) and sanded the rough edges down. I then painted it using Dulux 'Urban Obsession', I love it against the white lettering, and I only had to give it two coats too.

3. Cut your words, symbols etc into strips (if you haven't already), so that you can work on it section by section. Now rub white chalk on the back of your chosen piece of paper and then trace round the edge of each letter with a biro or pencil. You don't have to push too hard.

5. When you remove the paper you should have an outline of your word/image, like the above.

6. Now fill the chalk outline in using either a paintbrush or I cheated and did it the really easy way and used a paint pen marker...I love colouring in ;)

7. Attach a sawtooth hanger (if you so choose) to the back and you're done.

NOTE for lighter coloured bases - try rubbing a charcoal stick, or a pencil on the back of the paper, or use carbon copy paper between the paper and your base. I hope one of them works and don't worry I'll be trying one of the techniques soon so I will let you know how I get on.

Here's the links for the Silent Night words and the Bethlehem Star I used...

Silent Night Holy Night pdf

Bethlehem Star

Have fun creating some lovely plaques!!

DIY Christmas wrapping paper

2013-12-16T05:21:00.001-08:00

As you know I have a few kids (6 to be exact) and so I have several teachers, teachers assistants, play school teachers etc that I like to get presents for at Christmas.

I didn't have time to search or come up with an idea for something that the kids could make this year, so instead I got them to decorate the wrapping paper and Christmas tags for their teachers....they loved it!! It was super easy and no mess either, which is always an added bonus.

The kids used my Sakura souffle pen, and just like their mum they love how it's 'magic'....go buy one now, you won't regret it :)

They drew stars, snowflakes, wrote Christmas messages, and one of my sons just scribbled all over the paper and tag and even that still looks good...and as mentioned before it will be almost invisible when you first put it on, but give it a couple of minutes and it will 'magically' appear!!

We just used brown parcel paper, got the tags for 3p each from a local stationers, and tied it up with chunky butchers twine.

Hope you enjoy doing this as much as we have, Merry Christmas!

Kids Hanging Christmas Decoration

2013-12-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

My three daughters have been keen to have some 'crafty' time with mum...so on Saturday we shipped all the boys off to the park with a football and had an hour to get creative!

Our stake does an annual Festival of Nativities, so since I'm helping in the Children's craft room this year I thought I'd get them to make something I could display in the room for ideas of what children can make.

This was one of the items the girlies made (age 7-11)....

...and yes, we were all still in our PJs, haha, the best way hey!!?!

Materials needed

CD/DVD - old or blank

wadding

material

felt

ribbon

hot glue gun

1. Put a small amount of wadding on top of the CD, then place it on the back of the material you are using as the cover, with the wadding in between the cd and the material.

(Our material measured approx 24x24cm, yours could be smaller if you use a larger piece of felt on the back)

2. Use a hot glue gun (with assistance) to glue the fabric to the cd, we folded the top section down first and glued it, then folded the material around bit by bit, gluing as we were going.

3. The back ended up looking like this, no worries how it looks as you can cover it up....stick your ribbon in the middle and to the edge of the cd so that it will hang correctly.

4. Choose what shape you are going to put on the back, my daughter chose to cut out a red felt heart.

5. For the front she chose to do the word 'JOY', so to help my girls not waste a load of felt and also to help get a nice edge, we ironed some freezer paper to the felt so that they could draw their words/shapes on the paper, cut them out and then peel it off ready to stick on....or to make it really easy (esp for kids) just use self-adhesive felt.

My other daughter made this one....

Just a note...you can cut a larger circle of material and do a large running stitch around the edge of the circle to then gather the material in, and this should make it look more circular when finished.

Enjoy being crafty, and don't forget to wear your PJs ;

Christmas 'Tag'

2013-12-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago a good friend of mine, popped over for a play day....and boy did we play!! ;)

We were chatting about how we wanted to help spread the Christmas cheer into our local communities and to be more unified as church members, and this idea was miraculously born! Somehow it all came together soooo quickly and we couldn't stop high fiving and squealing with delight to each other (no joke!!).

Materials needed

Tag

Long ribbon

Red sharpie (felt tip)

Sakura Souffle - white (my new found love)

Distress Ink Pad - walnut stain

Christmas 'Tag' poem

1. Write Christmas 'Tag' using the red pen and then use the white Sakura Souffle pen to make snowflakes...this pen is magic, when you write it will be clear but wait for a couple of minutes and it will magically turn white!!! LOVE!!!

2.Then use your distress ink pad to dab along the edges of the tag and the poem, then use a glue stick to attach the poem.

3. Thread through a long piece of ribbon (I love red and white gingham for anything Christmassy) so that the gifts can be attached, mine measured about 50cm.

4. Attach your small gift that can be posted through a letter box eg a christmas decoration, candy canes, chocolate bar, cd, bag of sweets, dvd etc.

5. Next, post your Christmas 'Tag' to your friend, family or someone in your community and quickly run before you get caught!!! Or you could also put it in a jiffy bag and send it through the post to someone further afield.

And not forgetting (because I almost did, lol!) here's the poem that you need to attach to the back....

In case you can't read that, here it is.....

You've been 'tagged' in this Christmas game,

Now find somebody else to 'tag' the same.

Attach a small gift to post through their door,

And see how the Christmas cheer spreads even more!

This is a great activity to do as a family (my kids love being secret gifts ninjas...yes they hide, crawl, roll just to get to somebody's front door, haha, love it!!!) or youth group and doesn't cost much either, but helps to share the Christmas feeling with everyone.

Merry Christmas....and please let me know how your tagging goes, or if you're a lucky one to get tagged too!! :)

Chalkboard Missionary Badges

2013-10-21T13:27:00.003-07:00

Conference was amazing, each of the talks were just so inspiring, I couldn't get enough of it.

I really am going to try to be a better missionary and try to 'hasten His work'.

As I listened to Elder S. Gifford Nielsen's talk, he mentioned how we could pray for the missionaries serving in our area by name, here's what he said....

Second, pray for the missionaries serving in your area and their investigators by name every day. The only way to do this is to greet them, look at their badge, call them by name, and ask them who they are teaching. Elder Russell M. Nelson wisely contributed, “Until you know a person’s name and face, the Lord cannot help you know his or her heart.”

I don't know about you but my memory is crazy since I've had kids, and I find it really hard to remember things let alone new people's names....and with the Elders sometimes their surnames can be pretty hard to remember.

So I made some chalkboard fridge magnets with Elder across the top, so that we could then write the surnames of the Elders serving in our ward underneath....and then when they move, we can then change them.

I got some mdf cut the same size as a missionary badge, and then painted it with three coats of chalkboard paint. When it was dry, I used a Sakura souffle pen to write the 'Elder' across the top...it looks very clear and watery when you first write it on, but give it a couple of minutes and it goes super white like in the picture above...it's like magic, it's soo cool!! haha, what am I like??!?

Then put a magnet on the back and you have your fridge reminder or what the names of the missionaries serving in your ward are...we are one step closer to being better missionaries :)

I then decided to make some as gifts, I made them permanent though, one for my nephew who's on his mission now and the other for my friend who's just about to leave.

I'm so grateful for the missionaries who are currently serving all over the world, and for the wonderful work that they are doing. I hope that I can be a better missionary, and even if what I am doing feel like baby steps, in the famous words of Walt Disney I've just got to "keep moving forward".

Sweet Words to the Soul

2013-07-25T16:04:00.001-07:00

We've been playing this 'game' at the dinner table since February, at first we did it every day and now over time we probably play it just once a week.

It takes no preparation, just a family sitting around a table eating dinner together...and it doesn't even need that!! We tend to do it when we've finished our meal or when we are waiting for pudding/sweet to be served (that makes us sound posh, like we have servants to tend to our every need, oh how I wish!!)

Anyway back to the real world where my kids are delightful, treat each other nicely and are angels all the time....oh how I wish, lol. Seriously though as I was reflecting on one of my children's behaviour and how negative comments seemed to be outweighing the positive ones, this idea just popped into my head (I love it when that happens).

The first time we played the game, I told everyone to stay seated after dinner and to look at the person opposite them and say 5 nice things about them and then for the receiver to do the same. Luckily we have eight people in our family, so we were all paired off. But if this doesn't work for you, then you could do it so that they say the 'sweet words' to the person to their left??

Some of our children had compliments flying here, there and everywhere...while some were struggling to come up with just one!! And even then, the so called lovely words were actually being a bit nasty....'Mum, dad, was I ever like this??!!!?'

So the next day we did it again...we heard 'yay, I love this game' vs 'groan, moan, not again!!!' But it was lovely, as they sat there the words were making them smile inside and out, so that the once grumpy faces were erased. Soon the negative feelings towards the game changed and everyone was making sure that they sat opposite different members of the family each night so that they could hear what they had to say about them. Our two youngest children proved to be the most popular to sit opposite, everyone loved being on the receiving end of their compliments as they were sooo from the heart :)

I love hearing my children say nice things to each other, and watching the heart of the receiver soften as they are being said. It's also nice to stop as a parent and just look at your beautiful child and see them full of goodness no matter what sort of day you've had with them.

The words of Proverbs 16:24 are still true today...

Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.

Missionary Badge Pocket

2013-06-17T12:12:00.001-07:00

I was desperate to share this post before Fathers day so that others could do it, but alas as I was giving this gift to my hubby, I had to wait.....but hey there's still upcoming birthdays, Christmas, returning missionaries etc. that it would be great for.

This was another idea inspired from General Conference (April 2013), it was from a talk given by Neil L. Andersen entitled It's a Miracle where he said....

And returned missionaries, find your old missionary tag. Don’t wear it, but put it where you can see it. The Lord needs you now more than ever to be an instrument in His hands. All of us have a contribution to make to this miracle.

It took me all of 5 minutes to make this gift, especially as I got lucky and found my hubby's missionary badge right at the top of the first memory box I opened :)

I simply got one of my sons shirts and cut around the pocket, leaving enough excess material so that I could wrap it around the back of the glass in the frame....sorry about the photo quality but this was being done late at night, whilst trying to be quiet and quick about it! There's nothing like the last minute rush!??!!

I didn't attach the material to the glass as I thought I could then take it off and wash it if needs be...as I slipped the badge on I got all choked up, it looked really lovely for more reasons than one. I hope that my three sons will be inspired by seeing it daily around our home and that they too will choose to serve a mission when they are older.

I'm thinking that I might make a frame for each of my boys with their names and the phrase 'I hope they call me on a mission' printed on the shirt pocket where their badges would be, so that we would end up with a wall of frames. Then when they've served their missions they too can put their badge up as a reminder to themselves and us all to be missionary minded at all times.

For Peace at Home

2013-06-05T05:11:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it's been two months since Conference, time is just flying by!!?! I loved conference and didn't know where to start with the things I've learnt and the FHE's and activities that we've got planned....soooo excited, can you tell??!? We decided to start with Elder Richard G. Scott's talk entitled 'For Peace at Home'.

As Elder Scott spoke the words below in his talk an image popped into my head and I sketched it down in my notebook so that I wouldn't forget.

I’m sure you can identify the fundamental principles that center your home on the Savior. The prophetic counsel to have daily personal andfamily prayer, daily personal and family scripture study, and weekly family home evening are the essential, weight-bearing beams in the construction of a Christ-centered home. Without these regular practices it will be difficult to find the desired and much-needed peace and refuge from the world.

I'm still not super duper at doing graphic images but I'm good at sharing (lol) and hopefully getting better at it as I go?!! Well this is what I came up with.

to download file

click here

We used this talk as our guide tonight for FHE, there was sooo much in the talk that we could focus on, and I didn't want to leave any of it out, so I broke it up into smaller bite size chunks/topics so that the kids could take it all in.

I stuck a picture of the Saviour in the centre of a piece of paper and after we had read each of the quotes from the talk, we discussed them and then wrote on the paper what we could do to make Christ the centre of our home.

This is now stuck on our kitchen door as a reminder of what we are going to try to do to make our home more peaceful (here's hoping!!) and Christ centered.

For the activity at the end of the lesson, everyone got a strawberry lace and we put a big bowl of Cheerios in the middle of us all. One by one we had to say something that made us 'cheery' (aka happy), and then we could put one cheerio on our lace...we set a time limit of 5 minutes to do it, so everyone was trying to think of things to say as quickly as they could.

It started off well with the kids saying things and quickly threading on their Cheerio so that they were ready for their next go. It was only as we were half way through the game that the older kids noticed that every time they were saying something my three year old was repeating it and handing a Cheerio to his dad to thread on...hence his lace had lots more than the others, then everybody just went for it and shouted out lots of 'cheery' things with no waiting this time...it was really funny, and we had such good giggle at it all.

I really enjoyed the lesson and game tonight, but more so the game...it wasn't particularly peaceful, but hopefully we heard some of the things that makes others in our family happy, and will look for ways to make them cheery in the future. Playing the game was easy, but the further it went on, the harder it got...but as I heard some of my children's answers it made me reflect on lots of wonderful things in my life that have brought me so much happiness and joy. We are all so blessed in so many different ways, we've just got to stop, look and think and we will find things that make us 'cheery', no matter what our circumstances :)

Visiting Teaching Report Sheet

2013-05-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

I was recently called as a visiting teaching coordinator and I'm very lucky to have five great women working with me as district supervisors.

We held a training meeting the other day at my house, it was lovely to sit and discuss together the beginnings and importance of visiting teaching along with ideas, concerns etc. I found Chapter 7 of 'Daughters in My Kingdom' really handy when compiling my thoughts and instruction.

I gave each of the supervisors a wallet containing the list of companionships in their districts (you can get this off of MLS), also a great quote from Thomas S. Monson on the importance of reporting, post-it notes, pen, highlighter, and some visiting teaching report sheets.

I thought the VT report sheet would help to remind the sisters of their need to report their visiting teaching, as well as help the supervisors to collect their information in. We put the sheets on a little A5 clipboard with a trimmed down Relief Society Purpose Poster on the back it and used self-adhesive film to attach it.

We hand round the clipboard at the beginning of Relief Society each Sunday so that the sisters can take a sheet to fill out at home or complete there and then.

You can't see from the photo but at the bottom of each sheet we included a list of all the supervisors/coordinator names, telephone numbers and email addresses.

Visiting Teaching Report Sheet
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Click on the link above to download the report sheets, (you can choose from 4-6 sisters visited). I hope this idea helps your wards and branches to collect the information, but more importantly to do their Visiting Teaching.