My lovely oldest niece Emily came over for a day of card making and companionship. Here is her completed gallery, after approximately 6.5 hours of die cutting, trimming, coordinating, and gluing! Here are two of the unknown quantity of cards I made (possibly six?): Now you know how we both felt about this day. Thank you for coming over, Emily!
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I still haven't tried any of the scrapbook layouts from National Scrapbook Day, but here is another card based on a sketch, this time by A Cherry on Top. The sentiment actually came from a set of envelope liner dies, so it also works for the latest Stay Crafty with Hero challenge, "Out of the Box"! The floral background and pink and purple papers were all leftovers from other projects, so it also contributed to my personal goal of actually using up scraps once in a while.
This one turned out surprisingly well, so I might make a whole set of cards using this design at some point. Hero Arts is celebrating self care this week. One good self-care practice is to remember all the good things in life and express gratitude for them, so here is my "thankful" card design. We're still celebrating Autumn in April over here. . .next thing you know, I will be making pumpkin muffins and peppermint marshmallows! The back of the flipping element just has a cream-colored bumpy circle, left blank for a personal message. Sometimes I put something exciting back there, but it's kind of nice to have the inscription on the flip side, too.
Using an odd fragment in the use-it-up challenge, this card turned out better than expected. The heart and "THANKFUL" came from the coordinating 12x12 paper pad, and a few pearls never went amiss! "So" came from a Stephanie Barnard die set. I die-cut the word twice and the shadow once for a little depth of character.
Sister Combs forgot to take a picture of the M&M Blondies for the blog, but everybody loved them anyway. As usual, one child asked if we were allowed to have seconds before she tasted the first one, and another child thought we should suspend the two-treat limit so he could have a third. We listened to a song and discussed the proper way to sit or kneel during a prayer. The children all agreed that we need to sit still so that we don't distract others. We close our eyes so that we can concentrate on communicating with Heavenly Father and are not distracted by all the interesting things around us. Our special visitor Emi explained that we bow our heads to show respect for Heavenly Father. We heard an interesting story about Brigham Young and Heber J. Grant. As a boy, Heber would play at the Young house and sometimes join the family for prayer. President Young prayed as if he were speaking to a friend in the same room, and Heber sometimes opened his eyes to look for Heavenly Father. Even though Heber could not see Heavenly Father, he knew that he was listening to President Young's prayers, and he would also listen to Heber's prayers. We talked about the importance of expressing gratitude in our prayers. With the help of Mr. Happy Face, we took turns saying things for which we are thankful. We talked about asking for help in times of need, then learned from a story from the childhood of President Monson. The children were surprised that $5 was a lot of money during the Great Depression, and they loved the happy ending!
We colored pictures to remind us of what we had learned about prayers. The Other Sister Combs baked enough oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies for both her class and ours. This made a lot of children very happy! We learned that, after Jesus taught his Apostles about the Sacrament, he washed their feet. Since they walked all day on dusty ground wearing sandals, their feet were very dirty, and this was a big service. Jesus set an example of showing love and caring for others that we should follow.
We heard a story about Joseph Fielding Smith, who surprised his mother and sister by milking the cow early one morning. It was hard work, but he was happy to help his family. We learned that friends and family are not the only people we should serve. The Thirteenth Article of Faith, which we have been studying in Sharing Time recently, states that we believe in "doing good to all men". We talked about people who help us at school and at church. We made a Chain of Service, to show how service links us together. Each child wrote ways that they can serve others on strips of paper, which we stapled together into a very long chain! It was fun to see how the chain grow as we thought of ways to do good. Many of them suggested simple things, like "Make my bed without being asked," or "Help put away dishes". Ian wrote "Give blood", and Katelynn contributed "Be nice". We learned that some acts of service are big and some are small, but they all help us and those around us to be happy! The children who had extra time before their parents arrived made thank-you notes, to thank people who have given service to them this week. Class started on a high note, since everyone loved the super-sweet M&M Blondies. We reviewed the story of the Ten Lepers, which the children remembered really well from the previous lesson. We talked about some things that we could thank Heavenly Father and Jesus for, and then talked about saying "thank you" to other people who help us. We learned about a boy named Carlos who went fishing with his home teacher and had a lot of fun. Of course, that meant that we had to go fishing, too! Carlos was so grateful to Brother Taylor that he asked his mother to help him bake some cupcakes. Brooklynn: You love to bake cupcakes! Katelynn: We had some cupcakes at our house that you baked! Seph: I came to your house and you gave me a cupcake! Carlos took the cupcakes to Brother Taylor's house and thanked him for the fishing trip. We talked about how happy both Carlos and Brother Taylor felt. One of the children thought that maybe Brother Taylor would do something nice for Carlos to thank him for the cupcakes, and they would continue in a never-ending cycle of kindness and gratitude.
We also heard a story about a primary teacher who loved her class and spent a lot of time preparing lessons about Jesus and baking cookies for them (except on Fast Sunday). One Sunday evening, one of the students in this teacher's class brought came over to her house with a handwritten thank-you note. The teacher seemed to the children to resemble Sister Combs, and the student had the same first name as Sister Combs, so there was a certain amount of confusion and silliness, but we still managed to figure out the moral of the story: saying "thank you" is a good way to share our love. We made a list on the chalkboard of people who help us, and then started writing thank-you notes, which involved paper, crayons, and lots of heart and happy-face stickers. Although the children could think of lots of people who help them, they all decided to address their notes to Mom and Dad. It's good to teach people who have their priorities straight. According to Seph, today was not Fast Sunday. It was Slow Sunday, because "we don't have cookies in class today, and that makes class SO SLOW!!!!" We started by playing a thankfulness game: we had a cup of gratitude and added one button for each thing we could think of that we were thankful for. Eventually, we had listed so many wonderful things that the cup overflowed! We talked about how our hearts can be full to overflowing as we ponder all the blessings that Heavenly Father has given us. There was a lot of excitement before and during class about our teddy bear helper. She had come to help tell a story about a girl named Emily, whose grandma spent hours choosing a bear and sewing a dress for her to wear. Grandma gave the teddy bear to Emily for her birthday. We talked about how Grandma would feel if Emily wasn't grateful, and how much happier she would be if Emily showed her love and gratitude. Everyone agreed that we should say "thank you" when people do nice things for us. Next, we learned about the Ten Lepers. We talked about how scary it would be to have a dangerous illness, and how happy the lepers would have been when they discovered that Jesus had healed them. Even though only one of the ten lepers came back to thank Jesus, seven out of seven CTR 5's said they would have gone back! They certainly understand gratitude!
We talked about how we can thank Heavenly Father for our blessings: we can pray, and we can choose the right. We had a little extra fun with the Primary song "Children All Over the World" by matching the words for "thank you" in other languages with the flags of countries where the speak those languages. It was interesting to see all the different colors and patterns on the flags, but several of the American flag was definitely the children's favorite (even if two of them referred to it as "our Texas Flag"). We finished by drawing pictures of things that we are grateful for or ways that we can show our gratitude. . .and there were a few US and international flag stickers for decoration. Even without cookies, this was a pretty fun Slow Sunday! |
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