Valentine's Mantle

Love is in the air!!

Do you like Valentine's day?  Me too!  

Today I'm sharing my Valentine's Day mantle.

Valentine's Book Page Heart Garland

Today I'm sharing my first Valentine post of the season!

A book page heart garland.  

Young Women/Young Men LDS Missionary activity

A youth activity I have been wanting to do in my ward
for a long time is a Missionary Relay.   

I was thrilled to get to do it!

First, all of the young men and young women 

received their mission call and found out who their companions were.  

For the mission calls, I typed a letter that had where each yw/ym was going.  They then had to ask each other who had the same mission call to find out who their companion was.

Here is a copy of the "mission call" we used.  

Then they dressed in their missionary attire. 

 The girls had a choice of skirts and button ups or cardigans.  

I used some of my own clothes and also purchased a bunch from Goodwill.  

The boys had to tie their own tie.  Our YM president taught the YM this.  

Then they had to find their mission on the map and put a sticky note with their names on it. 

Afterwards they went to the MTC (relief society room) 

where they had to choose 2 of these 3 activities:  

-read lesson 1 of Preach my Gosel and write 4 things to teach an investigator

-memories D&C 4:1-3

-learn 2 sentences in a foreign language

I had copies of Preach My Gospel and paper to write the things they would teach an investigator.  

One of our YW leaders made a poster of D&C 4 and helped them memorize it.

I wrote 2 sentences in French and Spanish.  

"Where is the bathroom?" and  "Will you read the Book of Mormon?"  

I just used Google translate to do this.

After the MTC, the youth went to the airport.  (the gym)

They had to fold a paper airplane and keep flying it until it landed on an X.

It was harder than everyone thought and it took quite a few tries.

Then the youth went to the Mission Field (2nd part of the gym).  

There they had to sew on a button, press a shirt and 

then write a letter to the missionaries from our ward who are serving.  

We had a table set up with pieces of fabric so they could sew on buttons. 

There was also an ironing board and iron and they learned to press a shirt.

On the other side of the gym, we had a table set up with pens, note cards and the names of the missionaries that are serving from our ward.  

We found some guidelines for writing to missionaries.

One of our YW leaders had this poster printed as an Engineer Print at Staples.  

This activity was SO much fun!  

We had a really good turn out and the youth had lots of fun!  

DIY rice bag

So here in Tennessee, it's been really cold.  Like REALLY cold!   

Even though I grew up in Utah, I have lived here in the South for 10 years and I'm acclimating.  

So I've been freezing!

One thing I love to warm up with is a rice bag.  

When this simple bag of rice is heated in the microwave, it's thaws my frozen toes.  I love it!

Here's how you can make one too.

Start with a piece of fabric.  I found this remnant at Joann with the pattern of my fave girl!

I cut it down to about 8" by 10" or so.

Then I sewed a seam all the way around...

leaving a couple inches open at the bottom.

I don't have a funnel so I just folded some paper into a funnel.  

I stuck the make-shift funnel into the hole I left while sewing, and filled it up with dry rice.

I couldn't take a picture of this since my hands where busy holding the fabric 

and funnel with one hand and the rice with the other.  

I sewed up the hole with a simple whip stitch.

To heat:  just pop it into the microwave for 1:30- 2 minutes.

And there you have a toasty rice bag to warm up your toes!!  

PS- it also works really well for aches, sore muscles and girl monthly pains.  

linking up to:  On Display Thursday, The Shabby Nest

One Little Word

Have you heard of One Little Word? 

You chose one word to represent goals and actions 

to be taken in the upcoming year.  

I am not big on making New Years Resolutions but 

choosing a word- that seems simple enough. 

That was until I tried to choose my word for 2015.

I'm about to get personal again...

2014 was not a wonderful year for me.  

Nothing major happened, really.  

Everyone in my family is in good health, we have a house and vehicles, 

my kids are doing great in school, etc.  I know I am a very blessed girl!  

Even knowing all of that- I didn't have a great attitude, I felt sorry for myself, 

small setbacks were consuming to me, etc.  

I just didn't thrive in 2014.

So that is the word I chose for this year...

This year is my year to THRIVE!  

By thrive I mean be happy no matter what.  

We all have trials every single day.  

What sets a happy person apart from an unhappy person is how they deal with those trials.  

I am going to look for the positive in myself, the people around me and in our situations.  

I am going to figure out how to be happy and spread joy whatever comes my way!

Not only did I decide to do the One Little Word, I talked my family into it as well!

We all thought about it and chose words to represent what we want to do in the upcoming year.

We posted them on a magnet board in our dining room to remind us every day!

Did you choose One Little Word for this year?  

linking up to:  On Display Thursday

Vintage Door Knob photo holder

Earlier this week I posted on Instagram, (follow me for scintillating posts like that, haha)  that I had received my photo order of this year's family photos.

Yay!! I love when my prints arrive!! #mpix #familyphotos

A photo posted by shescraftycrafty (@shescraftycrafty) on Jan 1, 2015 at 3:06pm PST

I had a bunch of fancy new photos and needed something new to do with them.

I made a vintage door knob photo holder.

Last fall, I picked up these vintage door knobs and have 

been waiting for the right project to use them.  

The picture holder was the just the thing!

For the back board, I cut a 1x4 down to 3 feet.  Then stained it.

The doorknobs all had different sized holes so I used a variety of dowels 

to hold the knobs on the board.  

I drilled holes in the board that matched the size of each of the dowels.  

I cut the dowels down to about 1-1.5 inches, depending on the knobs.  

Then I glued them into the drilled holes in the boards.  

I had to use a variety of glues to attach to door knobs to the dowels because all of them were different.  I used hot glue, e6000 and wood glue.  

I ordered my photos from mpix,  (Not getting paid for this, just passing on an awesome photo place.)  

and had them printed in 10 x 13 and mounted to mat board to give them a little extra weight.  

That way I don't have to frame them.

I looped some ribbon and simply taped it to the back of the photos with packing tape.  

How's that for simple?

I had our family photo printed 16 x 20 and mounted on double weight mat board, then placed it into the frame I had last years photo in.  

I'm pretty happy with how simple it was to do this!!  

And looking at those photos of my babes makes me so happy!!

linking up to:  Craft Dictator, The Shabby Nest, Tatertots and Jello, Show me Saturday, The Party Bunch

Winter Home Decor

I love Christmas decorations!  But I also love when all of the 

clutter and chaos is cleaned up!

It's still to early, for me, to pull out my valentine's day stuff, 

so I like to do a little winter decorating!

I keep things pretty simple, with a few snowflakes and new year's things, here and there.  

Do you like to decorate for winter?  

linking up to:  Moonlight and Mason jars, Snap, The Style Sisters