yw birthday packet!


Hey y’all! It’s almost the new year, at least mentally for me as I prepare all these freebies, blog posts, and products for 2020 events and themes! I just finished this amazing birthday printable packet, and I’ve moved straight on to the Teach the Theme packet. It’s been nice to take a short break as I tackle all these projects to share what I’ve created!
First of all, I just want to say, if you’re terrible at something, never lose hope!! A year ago, for my blog’s 1st birthday, I decided I was going to make birthday cards to celebrate. Appropriate, right? And they would be hand-lettered of course. They would skyrocket my blog to fame, everyone would love them, and it would be great.
My older self doesn’t want to strangle my younger self anymore, but I definitely did cringe and end up deleting those terrible birthday cards from the blog. So embarrassing!

Ewie! Lol. I seriously want to take these off the face of the earth, but no. We choose to learn from our mistakes!!

I was mortified I had shared such bad work - and been proud of it too! As demonstrated by my compositions at the time, I was pretty bad at hand lettering, mediocre if we were being generous. I looked pretty stupid every time I took out my pen and did the dramatic swoops and swathes with the pen that got me those results! So what did I do? I kept on doing it, embarrassing myself, repeatedly practicing what I was genuinely bad at until suddenly I was proud of my results. Now I can confidently sell
these hand-lettered birthday cards & gift tags, which turned out beautifully.

Now this I approve of sharing!!

These birthday cards are a big part of the packet - there are 3 ones to choose from, each with a different design & message. They’re hand-lettered, and include cute hand-lettered illustrations!
And then there are the gifts! I thought it would be important for there to be a YW packet out there with ideas for things young women actually want. I’ve rounded up 3 ideas that I think would be supercute.

1. Scrunchies - I think you can catch that these are pretty popular, right? They are great to have around for when you need to pull your hair back, to accentuate a hairstyle, and as an accessory for the wrist. Even if you have some young women who don’t have long enough hair to use a scrunchie, this gift won’t exclude anyone — wearing a scrunchie on the wrist is just as popular as wearing them in your hair. The gift tag going with this one says, “Scrunchies make everything better. We hope you have the best birthday ever.” Cute cute, right?!

2. eos - these are so great for gifts and super popular. They just come in the cutest colors and are so handy to just have to untwist and put chapstick on with. Then, once all the lip balm is gone from the eos, there are SO many adorable ways to be earth-friendly and reuse your eos container. I’ve seen them be turned into succulent pots, pencil sharpeners, candles, deodorant sticks, and even just refilled with more lip balm. Eos lip balms are just supercute and a great choice all around. I created a card that has the eos popping out on a cute 3D style. It’s soooo cute and definitely a good yw birthday gift idea.

3.Finally, the “hands down” card is very versatile and works great for nail polish, lotion, hand sanitizer, soap (although that would be weird to give to a young women lol) my point is that it can go with a a lot of things! I originally made it to go with a PocketBac hand sanitizer, because ain’t nobody got time for painting their nails when they’re in high school and seminary and clubs and classes, but lotion and other things could go with this, and the tag makes it so that you can gift whatever item you want!
And of course I have a ziploc bag topper, and that rounds out this cute little packet. It is printer friendly, with soft, muted jewel tone colors, and your young women will love to get these cute birthday gifts as you celebrate them this year!

Check out this packet here, on my shop!

lds christmas quote #1 — christmas music time!


To be honest, I love the buildup to Christmas even more than the actual holiday itself. And a huge part of that is the music! Blasting Pentatonix at top volume, singing politically correct “holiday songs” in the school choir, playing my favorite carols at the Christmas recital, and bringing cheer to the elderly accompanying our ward youth singing all our favorite songs — these are all some of my favorite memories with Christmas music. And this is why I LOVE this quote so much. I was going to letter Christmas carols this month but decided against bc I felt like I had to keep up the quotes theme, so I feel like this is my compromise. Lettering a nice lil quote about them! Christmas songs are the BEST ugh love them so much, and when this publishes it will be December so I’ll feel right starting to sing them then.

This quote was sooooo long, so I did NOT letter the whole thing, but it went on to say that we will sing Christmas carols in heaven. Y’all! Y’ALL! Take all of your expectations of heaven and raise the roof cuz we are going to be singing Christmas songs up there!! Luv it.

I feel so lucky getting to start enjoying Christmas as I prepare these quotes. It’s finally almost here!

#LightTheWorld FHE


Hey, y’all! I am here with an amazing FHE packet for free for #LightTheWorld! So exciting that the Christmas season & initiative is here. I have 3 amazing ideas to help direct your family night, with activities for younger kids, older kids, and teens.


1.LightTheWorld.org “Scavenger Hunt”
TEENS: I’m a teen. I know what they like, hahaha, and I think our #1 favorite thing is our phones. This activity lets teens use them to learn while enjoying the Church’s new film, “The Christ Child.” This is an amazing film, and I tried to show it to my siblings, but they just don’t have that long of an attention span, or the patience for an 18-minute film. But I think that your teenagers will benefit from watching it and looking around the website on their phones, using the worksheet I made. I hope you enjoy using it!

2.Christmas Countdown Chain
OLDER KIDS: This turned out so cute and was super fun to make. I love counting down to events and having something to look forward to, and countdown chains are a great way to have a physical thing to look at that’s all like “25 days til Christmas y’all!!” This activity works as a nightly thing. Since older kids can write and may have their own ideas and opinions on how exactly to #LightTheWorld, I left a large spot on the chains for them to write their daily service plans. And there is no shame in just copying from the #LightTheWorld calendar, I’ve just provided these in case there’s something you aren’t able to do, or your family has personal ideas.


3.Service Ornaments
YOUNGER KIDS: If they can draw but not write, this activity is for them! I took each idea on the #LightTheWorld calendar and translated it into an actionable prompt for kids! Some of them were hard to translate and I opted for something different instead (ex: “Visit a small business and leave them a review” goes into “Thank your librarian”) so don’t try to read into them too much/extensively compare them to the original, but overall, they go along with the things that the other family members would be doing!
And all of these FHE plans, Printables, and activities are explained more in-detail in the packet, a free printable you can access here. If you love this, could you follow the blog Pinterest? Just getting started over there! 😉
Merry Christmas y’all! Best of luck as you light the world!

secret angel christmas fun!


Hey y’all! We just recently did this family night lesson to kick off one of our family Christmas traditions, and it was short, it was sweet, and it did not result with us at each other’s throats.

I thought I would share this cute tradition we do every year (beginning with a FHE lesson) because it goes well for us and I think it could add to a more Christ-centered Christmas for y’all as well.
In our family, us children are encouraged to be self-reliant and purchase Christmas gifts with our own money, which is great, except for when we aren’t rolling in dough. We decided one year that we knew there were a lot of us siblings, and not a lot of dough in our bank accounts, which consisted of our not-so-steady income of babysitting stints, birthday money, chores, etc. We all knew we would rather get 1 nice gift we would actually use than 3 items of cheap garbage from each other that we would throw away anyway. So, our gift exchange was born.
As for the name ... I wanted SOME sort of more Christ-centered Secret Santa option. Instead of the Elf, you can use the Little Lamb, and I thought, hmmm, what would work for this time of year? Then I thought of Secret Angel. In the back of my mind, I was like is this good? Doctrinally correct? Does it make sense?

Then this quote from Henry B. Eyring popped up on my Pinterest feed! And it said, "Sometimes, you will be the angel the Lord sends to bear others up. Sometimes, you will be surrounded by angels who bear you up." And I was like YESSSSS! OK! This goes PERFECTLY with this Secret Angel tradition. So we went with it! (I have a printable quote of that quote from him, it is too perfect not to use!!)
So it is here that I detail our Secret Angel FHE lesson (and I know there’s the whole “every evening is family home evening now” thing, which is chill! If you count CFM studies as your FHEs *which we usually do, and is all good* you can still just do this as a family activity/tradition, per se.) Enjoy!
As a family, we talk about the messages from the video. The younger kids understand the basic love languages idea, and we talk about how we still want to give each other gifts for Christmas even though we are going to serve through love languages this season!
I put up a Love Languages cheat sheet, and everyone thinks about what theirs would be.
We talk about acts of service and ministering to the one.
On slips of paper, we write information about what we want and what our love languages are — for the gift exchange part and the service part.
All the slips of paper go in a Christmas mug and draw names to see who our Secret Angels will be. When we get the person, we also have that information about them and can use that to serve them throughout the Season & get them 1 nice gift.
To review:
•Secret Angel is a more Christ-centered version of Secret Santa. It involves a gift, but service as well.
•This studio C sketch goes over the Love Languages, and I’ve made a lil cheat sheet about them for y’all as well.
•Each person writes information about themselves, and the kids draw names of which kid they will be buying for and serving.
•All Printables for this lesson are free! **Be sure to share this idea! However, you may not make copies of this, link to the file, sell it as your own, etc.**


•And that’s it! It has been a really fun & unifying tradition on our family, and I’m so grateful to share.

If you love Christ-centered Christmas ideas and lovely lds Christmas helps like these, be sure to follow me on Pinterest!

Annnnnnnd y'all can get the full free packet (which includes the quote, Secret Angel slips to put in the mug, and a Love Languages cheat sheet) here.

#generalconference quotes -- finally here!


6 whole quotes! Crazy, right? Last year I was like “woohoo general conference!!” and I was like “Ima make a quote for EVERY talk. Yeah!” I made maybe like 3, and then ran of steam. Whenever I start a project, I’m all like “were doing something new!” But as time goes on, I sometimes am like struggling to do that last stretch and hate what I’m doing and just. Want. To move on. So this year I choose a much more doable goal. I’ve made a quote from every talk in the general women’s session! I hope y’all enjoy.



And now we have the talk by Sister Aburto!! So good. It was just so admirable of her, I think, to break some cultural silence on this issue. If you missed this amazing talk, be sure to read it here! It really started off the women's session with a great and relevant topic, and I think this one is going to stay around as a popular talk for a while.

And then there is the talk by Lisa Harkness! Honestly I was not paying total attention to this one. I was like, “this lady is the only thing between us and the news, so .... aaaaah can’t believe it!” But it was such a good talk, all about the name of Jesus Christ. Names are so important, and she talks about how we can honor and do it all in His name. Read her talk here.



Then next was Sister Cordon’s talk. I was honestly just on the edge of the seat the whole time, paying attention, but not. I was annoyed that they dropped the ultimate cliffhanger in the middle of general conference — I was just like “ok yep very nice TELL US WHAT YOU’RE CHANGING IN YOUNG WOMENS!!!” Now I see that if she just went straight to the announcements there wouldn’t be any quotes for me to letter. It’s all about helping us prepare to be strong faithful women of Christ and gain divine attributes NOW while we are young women. If you need a lil refresher on what she said, click here.


Now onto President Eyring’s talk. Tbh, I wasn’t paying the most attention at this point because I was all surprised and shocked about Sister Cordon’s talk to actually pay attention to what he was saying. Hehe.
So I reread it, which is always a good idea, and saw that it was really pretty great. It was all about how great women are, which I was like, yeah!
And about how we as women can serve by mothering, leading, and ministering. And he didn’t just say his lil quote and mic drop and be like “bye y’all figure it out for yourselves!” he went in-depth with how to do each one of them, and actionable ways to improve at them, which I for sure appreciated. Awesome talk!


Now for President Oaks! His talk was definitely controversial and I understand how his style can seem off putting to some...but his job isn't to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy and like they're doing everything right. Part of having living apostles and prophets is hearing things we don't always want to hear. Check out his talk here.


President Nelson’s talk! I loved this so much, and especially how the restoration of the priesthood is relevant to us women as well. I may never know exactly why women don’t get ordained, but I do know several things (and I have learned even more from his great talk) that help to support my questions and fill the gaps of my understanding. If you want to reread his talk — all about women and the priesthood and how they can access the power and blessings (“Spiritual Treasures”) that are rightfully theirs — click here.

And that's it! Grab the printables for free here, and if you like them, please, please follow my account on Pinterest! You'll be able to find lots of other lds goodies there and on my blog.

lds thanksgiving quote #4 -- love & thanks


Hey y’all and happy Friday. I felt this was extra relevant because look who said it! Our awesome prophet.
Now for one moment, think of everything that you want in your life.
I won’t even try to guess exactly what came to your mind, but by the way the question was phrased it’s likely that you desire things that you already have.
How many times do we get caught up with the next best thing, our latest idea for the wishlist, and then forget the time when we wanted exactly what we now have?
Sometimes you haven’t even gone without something, and that can also lead to taking things for granted.
Whenever I have a cold, I sulk, remembering the good times when my nose wasn’t running and I would breathe without sniffling; when my head doesn’t throb and I don’t constantly shiver. All I will want is to be in that blissful state of, you know, not-sickness.
But when I’m finally well again, maybe sometimes I go back to longing for “more important things.”
Maybe y’all go ahead and write that list. Just think about the amazing amount of blessings that we already have; that were right under our noses the entire time.
Then think about how happy our Heavenly Father will be when He sees our fleeting, lovely gratitude even if just for a moment.
If we love him, we’ll keep His commandments. (I can’t believe we’re still in 2019, maybe mentally with all this content creation I’ve moved onto go and do already!) And from the way President Nelson has worded it, it seems like gratitude is one of them.
Just some thoughts on gratitude, but don’t get too used to these weekly quotes! In 2020 ( oh my goodness that is so soon!!!) I’m going to be lettering scriptures from the Come Follow Me reading on Mondays instead. It’s still a quote every week, but this time nice and aligned with the direction the church is going in. Don’t worry — this won’t be a CFM-only blog, but it’s something I’m excited to incorporate.
Honestly, as a YW blogger mostly, I have no idea how things are going to look next year in this organization. But I have faith. And I’m so excited for what the future will bring.

2020 mutual theme -- in other languages


I love my ward YW group, and our diversity, one aspect being the multitude of languages we speak. Many of us speak English, and we have several Spanish and Portuguese speakers as well. 

It's hard to find posters and things online in Spanish -- and if it's hard to find those, it's nearly impossible to find lds printables in Portuguese, so to fill in the gaps, we'll make our own sometimes!

It's just the best feeling, though, whenever we'll be searching online and we see that someone has already made an amazing poster in the language that we are searching for. So to pay it forward, I am so excited to share these free posters with y'all.

I made 3 minimalist style "Go and Do" posters for anyone living in Spanish/Portuguese/French-speaking countries, or in the same situation as we are in with several spoken languages in their ward.

I wanted there to be a handout of the theme for our Spanish and Portuguese speakers in their native language so they can understand and internalize the theme.

If I lived in Switzerland again, and someone gave me a handout saying "J'irai et je ferai" I may be able to understand what it was saying, but I would have to translate it and it wouldn't be as personal and meaningful as a poster of my own in English.

And, honestly, it is just so worth it to do the translating! We all smile in the same language, and it almost brings me to tears thinking of the extreme surprise, joy, and gratitude that shows up on the amazing young womens' faces whenever we have a translation for them. And the amazing people that we are so lucky to live in the same ward with? That is really the reason behind all of the translating we end up doing. Our encounters in my broken Spanish and their English always end up with laughter and smiles, and although maybe half of the time we don't understand the words that each other are saying, the sisterly & Christlike love is there.

I made Spanish and Portuguese versions because we want to have them for our ward, and I added in French since I've lived in a French-speaking country, and so I'm a lil partial to the language and my memories there. If I don't have it in your language, please don't be offended or think it means I am saying that yours is insignificant.

Obviously, 3 languages are not supposed to represent every one in the world, and I just chose some I was a little familiar with. Let me know and I can add a free poster in your language if needed.



Get the 8 x 10 "Go and Do" poster in Spanish here!


Get the 8 x 10 "Go and Do" poster in Portuguese here!


Get the 8 x 10 "Go and Do" poster in French here!

Happy planning!

3 yw christmas gift tags


Y’all, it’s finally somewhat Christmas time and I’m sharing YW Christmas gifts and aaaah SO excited!

Okay. So I know it’s November. But it’s really hard to stay off Christmas when you’re batch creating the Christmas content, practicing Christmas songs for piano, choir, and church choir, and Halloween is over, peoples! Also, Christmas music is always available. The temptation is real, people. No, the real reason I’m putting these out a lil early - and making it a list post 😁 - is that I’ve gathered that yw Christmas gifts are a big deal! I make little treat tags every month for if leaders want to give their girls a little something for the holiday, but I know others just do Christmas and birthday gifts, so I wanted to have good options for those people.
I’m so excited to share all these great ideas with y’all. I wanted all of these to be inexpensive & doable, especially for if you’re needing to purchase for a large group of YW.

This post took a long time to create, oh my goodness! I had to think of the gifts, then think of the tags, and then make them. Then, I spent a few hours taking like 30 photos, then I edited them, and yeah... this is why I don't do photography for everything! But seriously tho, the process of making it was so fun, snapping pictures of super easy Christmas gifts while blasting my perfect Christmas music playlist in the background.

Maybe I'm evil for sharing this in November. It's like the shoulder angel and devil - no, the shoulder turkey! The turkey be all like "We shall remain PRESENT!!!" and then the other... Rudolph idk is like, "Just give in already. Halloween is over, soo....."

But. Whether I tell y'all or not, I still am making this in November so I can focus on the New Year Go & Do stuff -- so why schedule this to be posted later when I know that everyone is secretly thinking about Christmas anyways?😉

Although I format it like a craft post, these are super low-key. As long as you can cut out gift tags and tape them onto something, you're good. And you can make pretty much all of them with basic things you could find around your house. I have a few supplies to make the gifts extra cute (hole punch, ribbon, cello bag) but all you really need are scissors or a papercutter, and tape. That's it! Oh, and a pencil to write some personal messages, right?


Ok, let's jump right into it!

1. Angel Gift

I love the angel part of Christmas! It is such an awesome aesthetic, and I really would have loved to be in or at least seen that ultimate gospel choir. That’s at least how I imagine it. I think they would be singing that music. 😂
I found the verse referring to this awesome squad of angels, and lettered it on a gift tag for y’all. If you’re planning on doing this one, this is how I made it into a gift to give out to the YW.


I used an angel figurine I already had after I looked on where to find it I saw it might be out of a YW budget price range. It was like 10$ so not that expensive, but wayyyy too much when you’re purchasing for a bunch of young women!

The company, GANZ, has a whole line of angel things. It’s $5 for one. I then also found a much cheaper set of angel ornaments in bulk. For some reason, it’s nearly impossible to find inexpensive angel figurines, but angel ornaments exist. Lol. The ornaments are a little on the more expensive side (they aren't a fortune, but they aren't like a cent apiece either) but if you have a lot of money left in the budget and it doesn't roll over, this is something you could maybe choose to spend on.
You can follow the process I used as far as you want or just give them the tag & the gift by yourself!
I thought it would be cute to put it in a cello bag.
I then took a circle punch (hole punch was missing, so gotta be creative y’all!) and string, and used it to attach the tag to the bag. Simple, cute, easy. If I can do it (I am artistic but NOT crafty at all) you definitely can too! This is how it turned out. It almost felt wrong like putting an angel in a bag lol, but I think it could be so cute with like Christmas candies in the bag and whatever. You don't have to put it in a bag, but it does step it up a lil bit and make it more formal and less "take this from my hand!"

Get the angel gift tag here. I’ve put links as to what gifts would go well with it above. Additionally, I wanted there to be a way for you to write a message to the YW if you wanted to, so I made a foldable version of the tag.


Ok. First of all aaaaaah I am laughing SO hard because even as I was writing it, I was like "heaven is cheering you on yesterday" just doesn't sound right. How could they... grammar...English?

 I ended up looking up the quote and I was like "ohhhhhh hehe, it's heaven is cheering you on TODAY, tomorrow, and forever!" So. Don’t write that. Don't judge my errors, but please do notice that while I call them YW Christmas Gifts you can TOTALLY use them for like any Christian Christmas sort of thing. Ministering sisters, Activity day girls, and of course, for anyone who is chill with the Bible! So yeah. This is the final project, and I love how it turned out.


2. He is the gift.


He is the gift! Our merciful Savior and His atonement and love is the ultimate Christmas present. Toys and clothes and things are fun but they won’t give us eternal salvation.
I already had this, and if you want a free, great picture of the Savior, you’ll want to go to LDS media and see what they have. The pictures are all great, free, and good for noncommercial use. I used this picture.
If you’re looking for a step up from a Bible video screenshot, you should check out “The Hand of God” by Yongsung Kim.
It is so pretty and I originally wanted it in my room, but obviously, Art is expensive and I really didn’t feel like spending like 10$ just on a picture to be shipped to me from across the country.

I also didn’t want to steal an artist's work, so I went with the freebie! But this painting is so beautiful that I couldn’t resist throwing it out as an idea. It is pretty expensive, but the 3 x 4 size is at an affordable bulk price. You can get it here. The 5x7s are $7, which are great, but not the most cost-effective if you have over ... like ... 1 YW😂.
I just put this in a cute gold $1 frame and wrapped it in a ribbon. Bc you know - He is the gift! Here is the finished product. Ta da! If you like the "He is the gift" tag, get it here. I made like 4 in different sizes, with you can trim and attach to the frame!


3. Candy cane


If you’re going to give the girls candy canes, add this treat tag & connection to the Savior with it.
I really think the best defense against forgetting the Christ in Christmas is taking the symbols that don’t relate and discussing how they can connect to the gospel. This is an example!
Jesus Christ truly is the Good Shepherd, and He will pick us up on his shoulders & carry us home. He will leave the 99 to find us, and I used John 10:11 about this on the treat tag.
We do celebrate that He was born, but if He didn’t fulfill His earthly mission, teach, preach, love, die for us, and atone and make it possible for us to live again, His birthday really wouldn’t be that big of a deal for us.

My siblings love giving me advice about everything, and in this case, they opted for a huge candy cane that was $2 from Target. They told me this was because it would photograph better, you know them, always looking out for me, but later I realized that they had formed a secret combination that if I got the big one, they got to split it. Real nice. But it's fine, they can eat the huge candy cane, it will probably maybe teach them patience or something bc they can't bite it! haha.

Anyways, that's the candy cane I used, but you can find MUCH cheaper packages in bulk.This set from Oriental Trading is 24 for $6. Very inexpensive for a big group of YW.


And there is the finished product. Y'all see how big that candy cane is? Lol. If you like the gift tag printable, you can get it for free here.

Alright, y’all! That is it! All of the finished products are up there, and I think they are some pretty great ideas. If you love this, could you share it with just 1 YW leader you think this would help? Also, be sure to follow my Pinterest account for more LDS ideas.

Be on the lookout for a bonus #LightTheWorld YW Christmas gift. It’s gonna be great. Coming soon!