Christmas Gift Tags

Last year I found a terrific way to go green for Christmas. Rachael Ray showed us how to use fabric, scarves, handkerchiefs to wrap gifts (see here for instructions). I've been using them all year long for birthdays and other gifts. Although, not all of my Christmas gifts are wrapped this way I still have quite a few that I did wrap with fabric or handkerchiefs. I've never been a fancy gift wrapper. Normally, when using wrapping paper, I take a piece of scrap paper and write on the back who it is for and then tape it to the gift. It's hard to do this with fabric. So, I made these gift tags that are the size of business cards. I used the font "Santa's Sleigh" to add their names. Then, printed them out as if I were printing photos. This would allow me to choose different names per page, instead of my usual Publisher and having all the names be the same on the entire page. I plan to reuse them a few times before they are garbage. Here is the template if you would like to use them, too.

Handout Background Tempates

Avoiding Crisis Living

I love this lesson. Every week I enjoy reading, studying and preparing the YW lessons. I am reminded of just how inspired they are and am relieved that through this inspiration our leaders have thought of everything our youth need to be taught. This is one of those lessons I wish I could teach to many adults.

Here is the handout I prepared for this lesson and below is a blank version as a template for future YW handouts.

Handout Background Templates

Four more fun backgrounds to use for YW handouts.

Handout Backgrounds Templates

I've had a bit of fun making some blank YW backgrounds for handouts. Just add the words, titles, etc. to these already made templates. If you have any ideas or suggestions, let me know and I can adjust or re-create. Enjoy!

Associations With Others

I really like the Young Women Manual 3 Lesson 43 lesson about Associations With Others. This explains why we were not meant to be hermits or to give into shyness, etc. Here is the handout I created for this lesson.

Recently, I read a question asking if we could spend a lifetime of nothing but learning and reading without anybody else and simply devote our life to reading, and "understanding humanity on a more broader level than what the majority of people know?" I thought that a very bold and naive conclusion that we can only understand people by being away from them. I appreciated the answer one person gave...

"We do spend our life learning.... and living life in it's fullness still allows plenty of time for a lot of reading. It just takes less TV time.

The ONLY way to understand humanity on a more broader level IS to live with people, associate with them, and even better and more especially with your companion or soul mate.

It would be a gullible assumption to think that one can understand better than the majority through isolation and books. It takes a well-rounded education and experiences to obtain that which you have described. A great objective, none-the-less, and one that we should all be striving is to understand more about each other and to immerse ourselves in good books where we can draw from the experiences of other folks to help enhance our own understanding and personal growth."

The Test

Tonight for Family Home Evening we read President Boyd K. Packer's November 2008 Conference Talk, The Test. What I really liked about this talk is the reminder to hold a higher standard when dealing with those who mistreat us. The world would try to convince us that the response would be revenge, but Pres. Packer reminds us that "something much stronger than human nature [can] prevail...."

I can think of a few times in my life when someone does me wrong it can be very frustrating and tempting to fight back with equal determination. Then, to remember that this life is a test and I don't want to fail that test.