It Started with a Book and a Direct Order from a Pope

Twenty years ago, a Mom of two young kids, I began collecting ideas for crafts and activities to celebrate and teach the Catholic Faith at home. Tapping into the Liturgical Calendar of our Church, what I thought would be just a little booklet for my Catholic Mom friends, turned into a 300 page book. When we weren’t quite satisfied with our publisher options, we decided to embark on a brand new journey of self-publishing. My business-prof-husband cold-called our growing directory of Catholic Book stores in North America and we carefully chose our family vacation routes by the Catholic Book Stores we could visit on the way.

We slowly but steadily grew our distribution network to over 160 bookstores and began attending Catholic conferences across North America.

Our Direct Order From the Pope

In 2002, while we still felt like a newbie Catholic apostolate, we received a mission for our initiative, from a real live Catholic celebrity and officially recognized Saint! During World Youth Day hosted by our city of Toronto, our beloved Pope John Paul II personally received a copy of my book. We are told that he flipped through the pages of my book, glanced at my picture on the back, and said “tell her to keep doing this for families”.

He then placed the book with his personal belongings to look over on his flight to his next event.

Direct Order from the Pope

A lovely addition to the story, is that he then heard the confession of his dear friend Elizabeth(and last remaining relative, the wife of his first cousin now deceased), who gave him our book. Knowing her hobby of knitting, he asked Elizabeth to knit outfits for MY three children (mentioned on the back of my book), as her penance. We received the three knitted outfits within a couple of days of World Youth Day. We enjoyed many personal stories of Karol from their regular contact, as our friendship with Elizabeth grew.

Equipping Catholic Families with Crafts and Activities, Craft Kits and Cards to Teach and Celebrate the Catholic Faith

Since 2002, we have added a couple of kids to our family and quite a number of products to our Arma Dei Shoppe. We released a hardcover, illustrated Sacrament Journal in 2010 (illustrated by our daughter Kelly) and we launched Equipping Catholic Families early in 2011, featuring free crafts, activities, and tutorials for celebrating the Catholic Faith.

We now have over 60 Catholic Craft Kit printables packed with Catechism, Prayer, Saints and Sacraments and over 140 Catholic Journal, Consecration, Saints and Sacrament Stamps available for journals, snail mail, scrapbooking, and Catholic crafts. We have three decks of quizzing cards including our Super Saints deck released for the World Meeting of Families in 2015. The Super Saints deck (illustrated by our daughter Kelly) is comprised of 55 Saint cards, with quick and quantifiable facts for fantastic card games and quizzing.

While Catholic websites have exploded with Faith formation resources for families, we have let our original Treasure Chest book take a back burner to our other Catholic tools and gifts. We are pleased to announce the most recent print run of books has just arrived and we’re eager to offer A Treasure Chest of Traditions for Catholic Families once again!