Missionary Badge Pocket

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

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

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.

Easy Peasy Cushion Covers

I made these cushion covers last night and I love 'em...I'm thinking I might get protective of them when it comes to sticky fingers!! I made the plain cushion at the back in 30 minutes (from start to finish) and the ones at the front took me just over 45 minutes to make....my mind is whizzing with all the possibilities for the ones at the front. :)

The cushions are made from just one long piece of fabric and as I haven't attempted zips yet so they are just envelope style.

Measure the width and height of the pillow you want to cover.  Mine measured 18" wide and 13" high, so for the width I multiplied it by two, added on 1" for seam allowance and then 5" for the overlap on the back (you could make the overlap slightly larger if you want)...so total width added up to 42".  For the height I just added on 1" for the seam allowance.

I cut my fabric using my measurements (42" x 14").

Overlock the smaller ends of your fabric (so I sewed my two 14" ends)...my overlock isn't too great on my machine so I use my zig zag stitch and let one point go off the fabric so that it rolls the edge and stops it from fraying.

Turn over the now overlocked ends (1-1.5cm) and sew using the edge of your machines foot along the edge of your folded fabric.

Ignore this bit (and the next few) if you are just doing a plain cover...pin your printed fabric making sure it sits central to your cushion, make sure to check the over lapping of the fabric on the back is fairly central.  For how to print onto fabric click here for one of my previous posts.

I sewed round my fabric twice, the first time I just did a straight line, the second time I did a bit of wiggling...I like the finished result and the frayed edge, but you could appliqué etc.

Have the front of your fabric/pillow face up, then fold one end over and then the other...work the fabric so that it is the width of your pillow (making sure if you have attached a design/fabric that this is still central) and so that the overlap is fairly central again, then pin along the top and bottom.

Sew along the two pinned edges using the 1cm guide on your sewing machine, and then overlock the two edges you've just sewn to stop them from fraying.

Turn the pillow the right way out and ta da you have a super duper pillow case for your settee.

Preparing for and Reviewing General Conference #3

One of these days I'll be super prepared and get my posts on here before General Conference starts, lol!!  Well it's another 'can' idea but for General Conference this time, also below is a great link to 'The ultimate guide to General Conference with kids'...a must for anyone with children :)  

General Conference Preparation

I've made a 'can' for each of my kids this year and have filled them with pens, felt tips, crayons (for the younger ones), and some sweets...I find doing these quirky little things generally helps with my kids concentration and also they get really excited for Conference too.  I printed the phrase "I 'can' listen to the Prophets and Apostles" on some card and used lots of my 'DIY Mod Podge' to stick it on.  Voila!...job done :)

I put a big packet of love heart sweets in each one and the plan is each time they hear the word love (or something about love) being mentioned they get to have one....I'm guessing the younger ones will have finished theirs before the opening prayer, lol?!!?! 

General Conference Review

Very similar to the above except with the words 'I 'can' listen and obey the Prophets and Apostles'.  On the Monday after Conference for FHE we are going to go through our General Conference Notebooks and decide for each talk what conference square picture to stick at the top of their named lollipop stick.  

Conference Squares

Then on the back of the stick we will write a goal/idea of what we can do to follow the council given and review these during the next six months for FHE/family councils/goal setting etc.

This is going to sit on our mantle and I'm hoping it will be a daily reminder for the children and us to look through and remind us of the talks and council given at conference :)

Looking for other ideas??  The website shown below has a stack load of great links for all different kinds of activities, colouring, games etc, why not take a look it's great :)

livecrafteat.com

The Ultimate Guide to General Conference with kids

lds.org also has a page specifically designated for General Conference Activities for Children too.

Hope you enjoy watching Conference with your family and loved ones xx.

Scriptural Easter Egg Hunt

I've been asked to cover my Primary's music time this Sunday and thought I'd do an Easter Egg Hunt, so I cut out some brightly card into an egg shape and wrote different songs on...I had some left over and thought I could use them for us tomorrow to help us read the Easter story.

I looked in John chapter 20 to see what verses etc I could group together and write on the eggs and couldn't decide as it was all so lovely (cheesy but true).  So I grouped them according to the six paragraphs already highlighted in the King James Version.

Egg 1 - John 20:1-10; Egg 2 - John 20:11-18; Egg 3 - John 20:19-23

Egg 4 - John 20:24-25; Egg 5 - John 20:26-29; Egg 6 - John 20:30-31

We are going to hide them around the room and one of the children has to find number one first and then we will read/discuss those scriptures and then we can find the next one etc...once we've read them all the children can then hunt for their chocolate eggs.

Happy Easter everyone xx

Two Instant FHE games

I think I've got a bit of a wild imagination as I regularly conjure up games out of nowhere for our kids to play after our FHE lessons...though this only occurs when my brain is actually in a fairly functional mode, lol!! ;)

You need no preparation and no supplies, so you can play them in an instant.  The two games are entitled....Sleeping Lamanites and Are you Reverent??

The idea for this game came from the story found in Mosiah 24 where the Lord made the Lamanites sleepy so that Alma and his people could escape.  

 19 And in the morning the Lord caused a ^adeep sleep to come upon the Lamanites, yea, and all their task-masters were in a profound sleep.

Basically the aim of the game is for a Nephite to sneak pass all the 'sleeping' Lamanites on the floor without waking them up and escape from the city....aka get from one side of the room to the other without being detected by the people lying on the floor.  

The Lamanites lay face down with their eyes shut (no peeking!) and they are allowed one 'twitch' each...a 'twitch' is when they move their arm or leg to try to touch the passing Nephite (very funny to watch by the way).  If they miss that's it, no more twitches for that person....and if somebody does manage to touch the Nephite then they get to be the next one to try to escape the city.  I hope these instructions make sense!?!!

We played this one just this Monday after we'd a rather irreverent day at church, but we have yet to see if it's sowed other thoughts into their heads of crazy things to do during sacrament or whether it's taught them how to sit reverently, hopefully it's the latter!! p.s. I don't expect my kids not to move during church, but hopefully musical chairs is a thing of the past :)

Right how to play...one (or two) people stand at the front, while the rest of the family sprawl themselves across the settee doing things that aren't particularly reverent...eg fingers in ears, upside down, on phone, sleeping etc.

The one/two ask those on the settee "Are you reverent??", to which everyone should respond in unison "No!!"...of course, you always get someone that answers 'yes'.

Then they have a certain amount of time (we chose a minute) to get them looking reverent either by physically moving them or by giving instructions eg turn round, feet down, fold arms etc...the latter worked better for the younger ones.

We have really enjoyed playing these simple games together over the years and hopefully will have many more years of them to come, and maybe your family will enjoy them too??!

Gorzal and the Hobsnatchers book

Well the past couple of weeks have been really busy as I've been helping my husband get his first children's book released for the Kindle...or in other words I haven't been able to get a look in on the laptop, haha!!  

So since I haven't had time for anything else I thought I'd share the book with you so I can get the vision of tumble weed blowing aimlessly through my blog out of my head, lol :)

Gorzal and the Hobsnatchers

(The Eiderworld Series)

I know I'm biased but I think it's a great story (and others think so too, which is always nice to hear!).  My husband wrote it for our four older children aged from 6-11 years...they really enjoyed the adventure, and the humorous bits had one of my daughters in a giggling fit.

Sorry, but my time is up for now....wow, that went quick!  Hopefully I will be able to get some more time on the laptop soon!!

Hope you enjoy this book as much as my friends, family and others have.

Family Chalkboard

Chalkboard paint is my new love at the mo, everything is getting plastered in it!!  I decided to make one for my brother & co. for Christmas with their family name across the top.  I think it turned out alright especially since I was making it up as I was going along.

After giving the wood three coats of chalkboard paint (my paint dried really quickly), I decided to use precut wooden letters for the name and stuck them on with my good ol' faithful hot glue gun.  I decided to keep my letters plain, but you could apply acrylic paint to add a bit of colour.

I then hunted around my local DIY store for something suitable for the chalk to sit on and found this piece of wood, I think it works quite well....sorry, I don't know what it is called but hopefully you'll be able to find something similar to it.  I used a hammer and nails to attach it, this was a bit fiddly to attach but luckily my husband was about to lend a hand...if not, you could always use the hot glue gun again??  At the back I attached a small sawtooth hanger.

Feedback...they love it and their kids can't stop writing messages on it, yeahhh, I love it when a plan comes together!!

Love Hearts

Just a quickie post, my kids made these for their school teachers and hid them in the classroom.  Super quick to make and with my hot glue gun at the ready the sweets actually made it to the card without being opened or nibbled at!....ok, we have a few spare packets to keep us going :)

I decided to make some for the sisters on my visiting teaching list too as they they are perfect for posting through the letterbox, it's always lovely to receive a nice note and a treat doesn't go amiss too!