The Perfect Scripture Case.

I did it!  I finally released my Perfect Scripture Case pattern for sale on my Etsy shop.

This project has been FOUR (!) years in the making.  I began with my first scripture bag for my son when he turned eight.  Then I tried again with my next son's eighth birthday, this time I wrote down some directions and took a few pictures.  When I made it for the third time for my daughter I decided to take serious notes and turn this into a pattern to sell for others.  

At home I playfully referred to this project as, "My Mount Everest of Sewing".  It was very complicated and I was 100% starting from scratch with loose ideas in my head.

I knew exactly what I wanted -- a zipper case, thick with padding and of course, LOTS of pockets. After checking the market I couldn't find anything like what I had envisioned in my head.  So I made my own.

The Perfect Scripture Case is made to fit one regular sized Bible and Book of Mormon, a Bible and a Triple Combination, or a regular sized scripture Quad.

This advanced sewing pattern includes: A fully padded scripture case- using flex-foam, two soft perfect-fit handles, two zippers, three fully lined pockets, and all finished seams!  This part I was very passionate about!  All finished seams!  -- which of course, made this pattern a bit tricky to figure out.

But figure it out, I did!  I hope you have lots of fun sewing your own perfect scripture case.

And because the 4th of July is around the corner.  PS-- I love the fourth of July!  I've added a HUGE coupon.  I almost never offer coupons. 

 This coupon is for 50% ANYTHING in my shop:

Including my brand new The Perfect Scripture Case.  Please use the code: JULY4.
This offer is good for one month.

Happy Shopping.

The Perfect Scripture Case-- CLOSED

Hello, after years (FOUR YEARS!) of pattern developing I have finally completed The Perfect Scripture Case. 

The Perfect Scripture Case— this ideal scripture case sewn with love, is made to fit one regular size Bible and Book of Mormon or a regular sized scripture Quad.

I have had countless requests for a full sized Scripture case, after people 

see "My First Scripture Bag" pattern on Etsy.

Well, I finally got it to a level where it's ready to be tested.

This scripture case is fully lined with three different pockets for storage. 

Pattern includes: flex-foam for a fully padded case, two soft perfect-fit handles, two zippers, three fully lined pockets, and all finished seams!

If you are interested in being a pattern tester please fill out THIS FORM. 
Now CLOSED.  Thanks for all who showed interest!
All work should be done by April 5th.

Thanks!!

Articles of Faith Large Candy Wrappers -- Free Printable

This past year our Primary has been working on memorizing the 13 Articles of Faith. 

There are many ways to do it, but here's how we organized everything.

When we introduced the idea to our primary children we gave them these Article of Faith cards from distribution.  They were really beautiful and great quality!

We also gave the children these Article of Faith punch trackers to keep for their own record. We printed them as photos and had each child write their own name with Sharpie on the front.

As we passed out these two things we warned the children that these were not replaceable if they were lost (which inevitable, many were). 

Each month (for 13 months) we would sing one of the Article of Faith songs in order, for our opening song.  On the first Sunday of each month we would discuss the newest AoF and what it meant. We encouraged the children, with the help of their families, to work on memorizing these at home. Then we told them of the rewards for memorizing the 13 Articles of Faith.  Each number memorized would earn the child a small treat (dum-dum or mini candy) and a punch in their card.

Once all 13 Articles of Faith were memorized we gave each child a large Hershey's Candy Bar.  I made these wrappers to go over each candy.

Want to make your own?

Click HERE for your FREE printable 

Article of Faith Bar Wrapper

MATERIALS

1. Print off Articles of Faith Bar Wrappers

2. scissors + glue

3. One large candy bar per child.

STEP ONE:

Print off and cut out the Articles of Faith Candy Bar Wrapper.

STEP TWO:

Fold each dotted line in, smooth down with a pen to get crisp edges.

Place candy bar inside.

STEP THREE: 

Place a small amount of glue on the small edge of the bar wrapper.

Smooth down, all done!

Once we handed each child their bar, we took them to the hall and took their picture with their Article of Faith chocolate reward.  We had them printed with their name and date written on the front. 

Then we posted the photos to our 13 Articles of Faith board in our Primary room.

(I unblurred only my children's faces.)

This is just to give you an idea of what it looked like all together.  

We have a very large primary and more than half of the children were motivated to learn these Articles of Faith.  

We were so proud of them!

I love the simple, clear truths that these precious children can learn about their faith at such a young age.

For an Article of Faith paper tracker, go here.

Articles of Faith Tracker -- Free Printable

This past year our Primary has been working on learning the Articles of Faith. 

 I talk more about it in this post.

But I wanted to share the Tracker I made for the Primary leaders to follow.

 We printed out this Article of Faith Tracker. 

 Then I wrote in all the primary children's name in ABC order by last name. 

Lastly I tapped it to the inside of our cabinet in the Primary room.  

After church, each Sunday, we'd have Articles of Faith time and when the children passed of an article of faith, we would give that number a X. 

To print off your own Tracker go HERE.

Embark is the Service of God

I work with the young women at church, ages 12-18.  I really love it! 

 It's a Ton of work! But I feel grateful I can work, learn and grow with them.

This year we decided to have this be a year of Service.  Each month we dedicated one of our activities to serving others.  There was so much growth and joy found in that service.

Here's the video I made, documenting what we did.

O Ye that Embark in the Service of God. from @lliE on Vimeo.

Easy to do Scriptionary-- YW Mutual Idea

 

This week for Mutual our activity is Scriptionary.  I kind of toyed around with the idea of making a gameboard or making this a bit more complicated. Then, of course, I came to my senses and made a fun, quick game of it.

Using these Scriptionary cards from Mormon Share.  

The whole thing probably took me ten minutes to put together.  

Here's what you need to make your own easy Scriptionary Game:

1. Scriptionary cards (strips)

2. 7 Paper bags

3. 1 die

4. Chalk/chalkboard

STEP ONE: On 6 bags write out the Titles: "Person or People" "Place" "Event" "Ordinance" "Song Title or Saying" and "Thing (s)". Then draw out six different sides of the die on each bag.  Or, you could just write the numbers 1-6.

STEP TWO: Print off the scriptionary strips, cut them out and place them in their coordinating bag. 

I did change just a few of the strips to suit my needs, I changed the temple one, to our local temple.  I changed the Prophet, to our current Prophet. And I did not use the one, stand alone,"action" strip.

The seventh bag is for the discarded strips, once you're done, so they don't get re-mixed back in.

GAME PLAY:

Divide your girls into two teams.

One at a time, each girl rolls the die and picks a strip from the bag.

She has 90 seconds to draw what's written on the board.

If her team does not guess in time, the other team gets one chance to guess.

Team with the highest score at the end, WINS!

Young Women Activity- Box of Lies

As I've mentioned before I work with young women in my church, ages 12-18.  Each Wednesday we meet together and typically we're trying to do a lot of good for ourselves, others, and our God.   Each month we're specially preforming a service to others.  Often times we're learning a new skill (I've taught them lots of sewing- ha), or we're learning about safety or, generally, trying the better the world or ourselves.

That's literally a lot of growth and good we're putting out there.  And I love it -- however, I felt like we just needed to spend one night where we're having a lot of fun, getting to know each other-- and well, learning to lie a little...

If you're a big fan, like me, of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, then you may have seen his game they made up, Box of Lies.  Literally, the first time I saw it, I thought, "We should totally do this as an activity.  It would be So fun!"  Last week we finally did it!

Here's how we played the game.

FIRST, I made the board.

I was seriously struggling with how to make the board.  Mostly, because my go-to for all things is sewing.  And I was envisioning this fabric draped over PVC pipes, with a hole cut out.  It wasn't going well in my mind.  When I talked it over with some friends, my friend immediately said, "How about a science tri-fold board?"  I was like, Ah-HAH ingenious!  

So, I headed over to WAl-mart, picked up a black board.  I sat down at the table to try to determine how high the hole should be, then traced a big rectangle on the board.  Then, I cut that out with an exact-o knife.

Next I markered in each side with a silver or gold sharpie.  This made the holes really pop out and made my team names easy -- Gold team and Silver team.

For about three months I've been collecting boxes.  A lot of these came from the ReStore.  Plus a few from friends.

For what was inside I tried to get as creative as possible!  Mostly, I just went to the toy room and went for the most random collections I could think of.  Below are a few examples: A centipede, wearing Belle's princess dress, sitting inside Cinderella's glass slipper.  A rubbery Brontosaurus, wearing a jockey hat.  Olaf and R2D2 talking inside a pink baby crib.  A stem engine with a conductor and a brush.

 Before we started I read to the girls, the Official Rules:

Up front are a bunch of boxes containing objects no one has seen before.  

Taking turns each side will select a box, open it on your side of the table, out of view of the other person.

Once the object is out of the box, you look at your opponent and tell them what's in the box. 

You might be lying, you might be telling the truth.

Your opponent has to guess if it's a lie or a truth.

If you guess correctly you get a point.

Guess wrong, your opponent gets a point. 

Whichever team has the most points at the end of the the time, gets a Million Sugary Snacks!!!

The Looser gets nothing!

Let us begin!

I divided the girls up into groups, Silver and Gold.  Once each girl selected her box and sat down, I had them answer a simple math question.  Whoever answered it correctly First, got to go first.

This game was so fun and so random. 

 Just like I hoped it brought lots of laughing and we all had fun.

Honor Bee Art

As I've mentioned before I work with the young women at Church.

It is a wonderful calling and I'm honored to see such wonderful examples of what youth now days are capable of.

Recently one of the young women in my ward completed her Honor Bee. 

 Besides being able to hand her, her honor bee medallion, I wanted to give her another little something special.  I thought about it for a while before deciding on a nice little piece of art, for her to remember the hard work that went into completing both her personal progress and her honor bee.

I sometimes forget how fun and quick painting with watercolor can be. 

 A couple years ago my husband got me this fancy watercolor set, where you squeeze the paint out of the tubes and add water to use it.  It's always really fun to paint with.

I loosely based my beehive off of this darling art from Rifle Paper Co.

I really loved this quote, "The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others." St. John Chrysostom.

I added it to the small frame.  It really exemplifies what it takes to earn the honor bee.  You must read the Book of Mormon, then perform 40 hours of service for others.

It brought me much joy to give this to that special young woman who is such a great example to others.

21 Pillowcases

This year the young women I work with at Church are focusing a lot on providing monthly service to others.  It's a great opportunity for growth and selfless thinking.

As we were brainstorming ideas I put my vote in for making pillow cases for the organization ConKerr Cancer.  I first heard of this organization from Made.

Of course, you know, I am a heavy sewing enthusiast so pairing my love of sewing, teaching that skill to the youth, and being able to give a cheery gift to others was the perfect service activity.

The girls jumped into the activity head first!  They were so awesome.  At varying levels of sewing skills they were all able to make at least one, sometimes three or four pillow cases.

We followed this tutorial by Made.

They really did an awesome job and learned a lot.

The pillow cases turned out so bright and cheery.  We couldn't wait to deliver them.

A couple days later I washed all the pillowcases, ironed them, and packaged them up to be delivered to our local hospital.

21 pillowcases, ready to go!