Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!        Do you like my St Juan Wooden Painted Saint? Printing and gluing the little Our Lady of Guadalupe image gave me a big boost, as I painted St Juan, trying to make him easily identifiable. I think I will be using other clipart to help articulate these little 2″ Wooden Painted Saints!    Check out these crafts for Our Lady of Guadalupe! Paper dolls at Paper Dali   These are my favorite handmade Tilmas, carefully crafted as St Juan costumes, but I think they would be excellent decorations and fun crafts to do!  The images are all a little different from each other… and they are all SO CUTE! St Juan Costume at Sometimes Martha, Always Mary  St Juan costume over at Catholic Icing.  St Juan Costume at Catholic Inspired. If you would like to read an awesome story about St Juan and Our Lady of Guadalupe, check out these links: Our Lady of Guadalupe at Catholic Online

Saint Fun Facts about St Juan Diego at Catholic Online

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School Christmas Ornament Exchange

Two of our kids are attending a new Catholic school in the area and I thought it was such a great idea that they are asking for a Christmas ornament from each family to decorate the tree year after year. I had a quick look at ornaments at Walmart and the dollar store, but couldn’t find even one remotely religious Christmas ornament, beyond maybe a star or an angel.  I decided to take matters into my own hands…and pull out the supplies I use for my Wooden Painted Saints.

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Equipping Catholic Families for DECEMBER and ADVENT!

See my index of I Spy…the Saints! for the months of July, August, September, October and November.  They are even offered as a special  Saints Page Printable for month by month binder dividers!

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Inventive Advent Calendar

Only TWO weeks until Advent begins! Are you ready? Last Advent, I wanted to make my own custom Advent Calendar. The problem was that I decided to recycle yogurt containers to create the little pockets inside the box….but it took me well into Advent to collect the 20 that I wanted to use! I never ended up posting my final Advent Calendar…and this will be the first Advent that we use it! It ended up being kind of an ambitious project…and took me back to Architecture school, with my Xacto knife and cardboard model making. I decided to add some variety (and to save space and yogurt containers!), I would make some of the compartments drawers instead of doors, using dollar store matchboxes for my hardware.

A paper chain link from the Advent & Lent Quest Cathletics Craft Kit!

can fit in one of these little drawers, or you could add your own Advent messages or challenges. I added the shelves as added structure for the box.  I cut the doors and drawer holes carefully with my craft knife.  The matchboxes friction-fit into the holes, but are reinforced with glue around the seam, on the inside of the cardboard box. The yogurt containers were easily glue-gunned in place and make nice clean plastic pockets.

I decorated the door panels with Catholic Artworks Advent Clipart (they’ve got a sale on right now!) tying the Jesse Tree into our Advent Calendar.  See other Homemade Advent Calendars from the Equipping Catholic Families post from last year!

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NEW! Advent and Lent Quest… for the Year of Faith and MORE!

Are you ready for Advent? We have expanded our popular Advent & Lent Quest Cathletics Craft Kit …actually we have expanded it 3x! There are now THREE different themed paper chain links included in ONE kit! Season with the Saints includes 48 + a do-it-yourself template for you to add any of your family patron saints if we didn’t already include them! Each link is packed with information about the saint…years of life, patronage, feast day, vocation highlights and a special quote or prayer. Saints include St Therese, St Pio, St Anthony, St Jude, Bl John Paul, St Nicholas, St Benedict, St Peter + 40 more!

Imagine if your family learned specific details about a new saint every day this Advent!

Year of Faith includes 48 + a do-it-yourself template for extra Catechism. Catechism facts include 7 Virtues, 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit, 7 Sacraments, 4 Marks of the Church….and less commonly remembered…4 Fruits of Holy Communion, 4 Characteristics of the Church, 3 Graces of Marriage, 9 Mysteries of Faith  + 40 more!  These links include the Catechism or Bible reference wherever possible for more information! Imagine if your family learned a new Catechism teaching…every day this Advent! The activity is easily geared to various age groups…choosing as much or as little to read or memorize each day. Advent & Lent Quest Challenges are reformatted from our classic Advent & Lent Quest Cathletics Craft Kit, covering a range of prayer, Saint-centric, Bible and Catechism challenges for the whole family. 40 challenges are included + a do-it-yourself template to add your own.  Challenges include: “List at least 3 things that God has arranged in your life…what blessings are you most grateful for?” “Read the Gospel and/or the readings for the next Sunday’s Mass.  How can this reading help to refocus our Advent or Lenten Journey?” “How many times throughout this day can we make the sign of the cross with EXTRA reverence…remembering that we offer to God our mind, our will, and our entire body?” To purchase the Advent and Lent Quest (3 crafts in1)! Paper Version for $16 + shipping (email to order)

3 in 1 includes Season with the Saints, Year of Faith
and Advent & Lent Classic

PDF Downloadable: $13

Check out our other Cathletics Craft Kits…available by PDF Download at the Arma Dei Shoppe!

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Last Minute Gift: Catholic Family Calendar!

Last Minute Gift:  all you need is a printer for a treasured family gift for
Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins!

The Build-Your-Own
Catholic Family Perpetual Calendar!
with Kelly Comics illustrations.

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Unique Homemade Gifts + Linky

Check out these special gifts I have made over the years for all of our extended family for Christmas: Homemade Family Treasures!

You can make your own perpetual Calendar too…
with this Catholic Family Calendar Printable or this Kelly Comics Family Calendar printable.

The first one can be alot of work…
but the good news is that it gets easier to make additional sets,
and they will be treasured by Grandparents, Cousins, Aunts and Uncles…

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What have you been up to lately?

 

I finally have an intro page…complete with photos from our photo shoot yesterday.  Wow…it’s difficult to get 7 people with their eyes open, nice smiles, out of the shadow (Kelly!) and looking in the same direction, all at the same time, especially when one is only 19 months.  This is my new Intro Page!

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Homemade Nativities

My clothes peg people are missing now…I’ll post a new (close-up) photo when I find them. They are made with traditional wooden clothes pegs, a painted face (with facial features added with sharpie) and material.  The arms are pipe cleaners.  These are sample crafts from A Treasure Chest of Traditions for Catholic Families. What’s the theme here?  Where’s Baby Jesus?  These are all Nativity figures I have made over the years with toilet paper rolls, egg cartons and wooden pegs…but Baby Jesus is missing in each one!  I need to start re-making Him… I remember the egg carton Baby Jesus, was just a small piece of the egg carton for a cradle, with construction paper “straw” sticking out behind a fabric bundle of baby.  I’ll  post pictures when I either find my original or make a new one. I find that Baby Jesus either gets misplaced by one of my kids parading him around the house during Advent (before Baby Jesus is supposed to be in the manger), or in transit from one of the Catholic conferences we attend. We have actually had the odd sample craft made from A Treasure Chest of Traditions for Catholic Families stolen from our booth display! These Holy Family Felt Friends are made with felt over a pipe-cleaner body, felt clothes, embroidery floss hair and facial features.  I know, I need to make a Baby Jesus version here as well. I added a quick Baby Jesus for this post. I made this Nativity before we were married and it’s our special one-of-a-kind family Nativity.  I think I found a pattern for the little bodies and then I improvised for the clothing. (Can you tell ? =)  I engineered the manger myself with the little skylight for the star to poke through. The brown manger material already had verticle lines in it, so I quilted it to make it a little more durable.  The manger also has a couple wooden dowels in it, but it’s not too “stable”.  I usually use a little pillow to prop it up.  I didn’t make the tree, but it looks cute with the set.  I like the lighting on the close-up picture…I think it looks like they’re sitting by the fire. Linked up to the Nativity Activity Linky! read more...for Equipping Catholic Families!

Knitted Nativity: sorry if you don’t have an Auntie Ingrid!

Linked up to the Nativity Activity Linky!

Auntie Ingrid has knitted amazing gifts for us over the years.  She knitted outfits for my brother and me…and those same outfits have been worn by my kids!  She is known for her amazing baby blankets…and I’m proud to say that our family with 5 kids probably has the biggest collection!

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