Family Portrait Wall Tree

I just finished this wall display the other day.  The parts of the tree are made with joint compound.  I cut leaf and branch stencils out of card stock with a pair of scissors and then printed out a picture of a bird from computer clip art and cut around it for the bird stencil.  It was an easy project that took surprisingly little time.  Oh, I also rubbed the design on the frames with joint compound so that the frames match the tree.  It cost me very little money, and I am very happy with the way it all turned out!

Fun Ways to Use Old Friend Magazines

 I enjoy collecting fun articles and pictures from the Friend magazine and making presents for kids from them.  So far I have made a recipe book, a book about Christ, and a book with Book of Mormon pictures, but I have ideas for more than just books.  The instructions these things are below, but first....

Here's how I collect the pictures:

After you get the new "Friend" magazine, open the old one to the middle of the magazine and cut it down the spine to separate all the pages.

Next, sort the pictures.  I do this by having a three ring binder full of page protectors.  Each page protector is labeled with a different category.

Notice that I don't worry about making this cute.  It is just to keep things sorted.  It is amazing how many pages you can stuff into a page protector.

Here are the categories of friend articles and pictures that I have sorted:

Activities
Book of Mormon Pictures
Christmas
Church History
Coloring Pages
Crafts
Easy Reader Stories
Flannel Board Pictures
Games
General Conference
Jesus Christ
Jokes
Holidays
Miscellaneous Pictures
Missionaries
Piano Music (For Beginners)
Pioneer Stories
Prophets (Latter-Day)
Recipes
Stories
Sunday Activities
Temples

Once you have been collecting articles and pictures for awhile, here are some ideas on how to use them:

Small Books:
My favorite books are made using a little photo book for 4"x6" that I buy at Walmart for $1.  This worked great for the recipe book I made for my nephew, Jesse, and the book with pictures of Jesus that I made for my grand daughter, Lily to look at during the sacrament.  The plastic pages make the books easy to clean and hard for a two year old to destroy.

Big Books:
For bigger books, like activity books, buy a binder and fill it with page protectors.  Slip the pages in the protectors, and your book is complete.  Try making one of the following:  "My Gospel Piano Book," "My Gospel Story Book," etc. For activity books, include a dry erase marker with eraser so that the activities are easy to do over and over.  For coloring books, include multiple colors of dry erase markers.  Alternatively, buy a sketch pad in the art section of a discount store, and glue one coloring page to each sketch pad page.  This makes it possible to use crayons or markers to color the picture.

Book Kits:
With a craft book, a game book, or even a recipe book, consider attaching a Ziploc bag with materials to make a book kit.  Look through the book to see what materials are needed to complete the activity and include them in the bag.

Magnetic Story Boards:
Glue flannel board figures collected from Friend magazines to magnetic sheets and cut out.  Let children tell gospel stories by displaying magnetic pictures on a metal cookie sheet or tray.

Gospel Fun Calendar:
Cut out month-specific recipes, activity ideas, stories, etc and form them into a collage on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and display above each month's calendar.

Popsicle Stick Puzzles:  Make popsicle stick puzzles from pictures you cut out of the Friend Magazine.

I hope you have fun making these ideas and also coming up with ideas of your own!