Principle or Ordinance

Our fourth Article of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints states:

We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.  

As our children work to memorize the Articles of Faith, I think they often don't understand the meaning.  For Activity Days quiet time, I made up the following worksheet.  I wish I could do it all black and white but these are the pictures I found, and as it is, it took me a few hours to do.

If I knew how to put it in as a pdf document I would do that to make sharing easier.

Iron Man--with Irony, and Iron-on Stencils

My grandson in his Iron Man shirt--with brother getting in on the act!

I based this off of a couple of ideas I found when I did a Google search for Iron Man images.  One was a super-hero dude on an ironing board, holding an iron. The other was just the Iron Man words logo.  I loved the light burst effect in the background.

I used a freezer paper stencil, with matte acrylic paint, only one coat, for the light streaks.  You just cut out the image you want, then iron it on to the fabric, paint, and peel it off. There are tutorials all over the internet if that isn't enough info.

I did the red layer first, in a couple of coats of glossy red acrylic paint.  Next I did the top layer of letters, with glossy yellow.  That took about three coats to cover the red.

Problem areas:  The yellow didn't make a clean edge when applied over the red.  I ended up taking a red fabric marker and outlining everything.  It's still not entirely clean-edged, but it helped a lot.

Last step was to do the iron.  I just used yellow paint, and then went around it with the red fabric marker.  That seemed to work okay.

If you want to have some fun, put these words into a Google search:  ironman t-shirt ironing board.  Lots of great jokey things.

Pattern in jpg.  I printed two so I could cut out the different sections, being sure to save the middle piece on the A, R, and O, as well as the iron.

In Training for Grandma of the Year!

Not really, just trying to put Train into a title somehow.

I made these two cute little sweatshirts and hat for two of my grandsons.

This one is for the 7-year old.
He was six when I started, so I was afraid  it would be babyish to him now,
but his mom said he loves it and wears it, so I guess I got it done just in time.

Applique hints:  
Print the pattern onto the unwaxed side of a piece of freezer paper.  You can do this if you cut the paper to the same size as your printer paper.  Iron it to the fabric you are using for the design.  Cut all the pieces and then just peel off the paper.  Works like a charm! All your sizes and lines will come out perfectly with no pattern slippage if you cut carefully.

Baste the edges of the first piece onto a  piece of very stiff fusible iron-on interfacing. Keep the "glue" side facing out.  Then applique each piece on, (You can use the Neat Trick I Discovered --below--to attach it before stitching it) basting at the edges where it will be attached to the shirt itself.  It's much easier to work with all the twisting and turning on a small piece.

Next step: Trim the interfacing to match the design, and iron the design onto the shirt.  Now it is placed exactly where you want it and won't slip, slide, and bunch. My interfacing is old, and I didn't have the iron really hot because I didn't want to scorch/melt the sweatshirt, so...

Neat Trick I Discovered:  Where it didn't stick, I rubbed it with glue stick and ironed it.  That stuck firmly.  I don't know if it would last through a wash, but it doesn't matter, since I was going to sew all the edges anyway.

Three:  Applique all the edges. Voila!  Cute and fun, and the whole project didn't take long. See, what took the year was getting around to it, not making it!

The hat that started the whole train thing.  I had a lot of trouble with adding in the new colors and I am not entirely happy with it.  I think I need to take a class on that.  However, Daddy says the kid wore it all day when he got it.  Good enough for Grammy!

The recipient of this one is my sweet little 5-year old CP grandson.  

The entire design is a knitted piece, ironed onto fusible interfacing to keep it as straight as possible, then sewn on.  I didn't worry about applique on this one, since it's a finished knit piece.  I just sewed it with a zig-zag, which pretty well hides in the knitted pattern.

Materials:  Yarn in different colors.  If you've got a yarn stash it's practically free. I didn't, so I had to buy the yarn.   Scraps of fabrics in different colors.

Sweatshirts, on sale at Walmart last year for a dollar apiece.

Cost to ship....yeah, there's the rub!  Still, about $14 for two cute shirts and a hat...arriving on the doorstep as a surprise, that's fun.

I addressed the box to the boys. I thought it would be fun for them to get mail in their own name.

Pattern

I just realized I was going to make a line between the wheels, and forgot to change thread and do that.  Oh well. It's still cute, but if you look at the pattern, a line would have been cute there.  C'est la vie!

Testimony Tree

For our Young Women activity on Wednesday  we did an activity based on the article  Growing Your Testimony, in the February 2013 New Era.  There is a great picture of a testimony tree, and the minute I saw it I knew I had to do something with it.

I started out with a little picture of a seed.  It looked kind of like a bean.  We discussed what happens when you plant a seed and nourish it.  We discussed the idea that our wonderful, smart God made it so you can plant a seed and know what you are going to grow.  You can't plant an apple seed and get an avocado.  You don't get corn from bean seeds.  We likened it to testimony.  You can't get a testimony by planting seeds of rebellion.  You can't get a good crop if you sow wild seeds.

I put up a piece of brown paper and a few of the girls read word-strips and glued them onto the "foundation." This is like planting a tree in good soil.  Then one of the girls came up and drew in branches of the tree.  We talked about the blossoms being the very beginning of good fruit, and sang "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree."


Then we discussed the role of leaves, which is to nourish the tree and protect the fruit, shading it from the sun and hiding it from birds and insects.  Without the leaves, the fruit would wither away and die.


I passed out the green leaves, each of which had a couple of scriptures written on the back.  The girls looked up the verses and wrote the main topic on the front of each leaf. When they finished one, they got to get up, glue it on the tree, and then do another until they were all gone.  A couple of the girls thought it looked a little bare and drew on some extra leaves. These I incorporated later in the activity.

After the tree was all leafy, we took a group picture in front of it.  The girls sat down again, and we went around the room, asking each to identify one gospel principle on a leaf and tell what it means.  I told them they know their stuff, and they are able to explain things to their friends.

All this took about 30 minutes, leaving us with a little while to go, so I asked them to help me label the new leaves with tools--the programs and accessories that help them to live the gospel principles.  We came up with Seminary, Leaders, Personal Progress program, New Era magazine, For the Strength of Youth  booklet, and others.

I honestly can't say how they liked it, except that two girls told me that it meant a lot and helped them learn some things.  I hope their testimonies will grow strong and bright and beautiful like our Testimony Tree.

Oh You Beautiful Doll!

I got Scarlett for Christmas and she's been standing
around on my sewing desk ever since.

Post-Christmas Untidiness.  See how the sofa is stuck against the desk?   And the TV turned at an angle so we can see it from the sofa?  

Second "Before" Picture.  The villages are all taken down, the tree is put away, but things are not back to normal yet. 

AFTER:  There's Scarlett, on the shelf with her friends, and a
blanket artfully hiding the ratty part of the couch.  

The TV is now on a turntable, which was formerly rather uselessly stuck under some plants.  Now we can easily swivel it to any direction we need. 

Larger View of comfy living area.

And my desk is ready for a sewing project!