Embellished Frame

Would you believe that after all the craziness around here lately then we all got the stomach flu? Yep, ALL four of us! That was no fun. And it really put a damper on my crafting! Well, finally we are feeling better. And I needed to prepare a lesson for church yesterday. For part of my lesson I wanted to display my framed The Family: A Proclamation to the World, an article from my church that shares our beliefs on family & why they are so important. But, I wanted to jazz it up a little. As you know, I have been addicted to these adorable fabric flowers so I used some of my Stampin' Up! fabric to make some for this frame.

Here's a close-up:

So cute! I am lovin' these flowers!

I also photocopied the proclamation, shrunk it down a little & then embellished it so that I could give it to the girls in my class as a handout:

I hope they like it!

Handmade Christmas: Temple Block

I wanted to make the young women that I teach every Sunday at church a little something for Christmas. I remembered seeing this Temple Block Tutorial over at Lil' Luna a while back & thought it was a great idea. Her & her husband worked together on this idea & it's just so fabulous that they share their designs with us for free! They will take any personal photo of temples that are submitted to them (it has to be from your own camera, no professional pics) & then antique it. Some have the phrase "I'm going there someday..." on them & others are just of the temple alone. All of them are so beautiful! Since our ward temple is the Newport Beach Temple I found that on the Lil' Luna site, but it didn't have the phrase on it. So I just imported it to My Digital Studio & added the text myself. Then I printed it out onto some nice white card stock. I trimmed it & then used Mod Podge to glue it down onto a piece of wood that I had already painted black & distressed. I decided to cover the entire front & sides with a layer of Mod Podge too because it gives it a nice, finished look & I felt like it sealed it all nicely. Then I tied some bright pink polka dot ribbon around it & was done! Oh, and my husband found a piece of wood for me in the scrap pile at Home Depot for 50 cents & we were able to get 6 blocks out of it! So this is a super thrifty project too!

I even had enough wood to make one to display in our family room too:

I printed the picture out as it is on Lil' Luna, without the words & then used a sheer black ribbon since it goes with our style in our house. I really love how these turned out! Such a great gift idea too! It would be fun to make one of these as a wedding gift & you could put the couple's name on it & the year they were married using a photo of the temple they were married in (ex: Monroe est. 2003).

Thanks to Lil' Luna for sharing with us!

An Attitude of Gratitude

I teach the 16 to 18 year old young women every Sunday at my church. Our last lesson was about gratitude. It was a very appropriate lesson seeing as Thanksgiving is this week & all. The lesson was a little short & I knew that I would need something to fill up the extra time with. I came up with this simple card for the girls to make:

I love these fall colors together-Pumpkin Pie, Cajun Craze, More Mustard & Chocolate Chip. They made the cards & then I told them to give it or mail it to someone telling them why you are grateful for them. The girls really had fun making the cards.

I also found these super cute journals in the dollar bin at Michaels. I simply jazzed them up a little by adding their monogram inside of a scallop circle. I love monograms! My challenge to them is to write one thing that they're grateful for every day for an entire year. I know that some days it might be hard to think of what you're grateful for, but even if we're enduring some trials in our life there is always something to be grateful for. I hope that they do it!

And on the inside cover I included an awesome quote about gratitude:

During this week of Thanksgiving I am grateful for so many things. I am most grateful for my family & for our health! What are you most thankful for this year?