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Looking for a good Catholic coloring page for St. Patrick’s day? Here is a list of some St. Patrick’s Day coloring pages! Download this Clover Coloring Page Here: Download this St. Patrick Coloring Page Here: Download this Cute St. Patrick Coloring Page Here: Have a blessed day! ~JenMarie

I personally look forward to Lent. Lent forces me to stop and refocus my daily life as well as my spiritual life. I try to remember to sacrifice and pray throughout the year, but Lent is that big push to try even harder. Most of the year, life becomes so busy and I get wrapped up in all the comings and goings that God can get pushed further and further down the list of “important things to remember. ” So Lent is such a great refocus time.      My husband and I have often used the days of Lent to focus on Jesus’ life with our children and we plan to again this year. So today I wanted to tell you about an eBook that Jon, my husband, and I have created. We joined together to create a set of eBooks for you, your family, and/or your classroom to use during this Lenten season. This file is for purchase in our shop. Click Here to visit our shop and purchase it! The main eBook,  is a 47 page eBook that contains a Bible reading for each day during Lent. All of the Bible readings are about Jesus and His life. The Bible stories begin with Jesus’ Presentation and continues to Jesus’ Resurrection. Each of the daily readings includes a beautiful work of art that depicts the story and a thought-provoking meditation that brings the story into your everyday life.  Here is one of the 47 meditation pages: This eBook is also accompanied by two other files. One of the files  includes images to make ornaments to hang on a “Jesus Tree”, and the other is a “Journey with Jesus Countdown Chart” Jesus Tree The “Creating a Jesus Tree” file, which accompanies the Bible story and meditation ebook is designed to help you create a “Jesus Tree” for your home or classroom. These pages include a set of the artwork images in miniature so you can create ornaments for your “Jesus Tree”. After reading and discussing the daily Bible story, have the children find the matching image and hang it on your “tree” or place it on a Lenten bulletin board.  To create the tree simply collect a handful of branches and arrange them in a jar or vase. Our tree is about 2 feet tall (from table to the top branch). If you can’t get real branches, many craft stores sell artificial branches. Some even sell artificial branches with lights! You could also hang them on a real or artificial indoor fichus tree, or arrange the images on a bulletin board. Add a picture each day! The Daily Countdown Chart The “Journey with Jesus” eBook also includes a Daily Countdown Chart! This cute chart will help younger kids keep track of the days they have completed and the number of days left until Easter! The child needs to color in one “stepping stone” each day during Lent. Start coloring the “Stones” on Ash Wednesday and color one a day until Easter! The little images on the chart correspond with the stories you will be reading in the “Journey with Jesus” eBook! ~*Companion eWorkbooks*~ The Companion eBooks can be used along with the “Journey with Jesus” Bible Reading and Meditation eBook. They are extra worksheets to reinforce the stories you have read and discussed. There are two different eWorkbooks. Copywork eBook 1 with Drawing Prompts The first companion book is great for younger children and has a page for each day of Lent. Each page includes a copy work section and a drawing section. The copy work section includes a Bible verse which has been taken from that day’s Bible reading and meditation. The lines are Primary lines. Journal eBook 2 with Art Prompts The second companion book is designed for older kids, and each page includes a drawing section, a Bible verse, and an area to add personal thoughts, a note to God or other Journal meditations. It can also be used as copy work if desired. This file is for purchase in our shop. Click  Here to visit our shop and purchase it! You can purchase these in our Download  Store! Have a blessed Lent! May you grow closer to Jesus! ~JenMarie and Jon says “Hi!” too!

Saint Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! So I wanted to share a set of Catholic Valentine’s that I created for this special day. This set includes 6 different cards. These cards can be used as flat mini cards or larger folded cards. These would be great for kids or adults to send to friends and relatives for the special feast day! Or use the images to create your own homemade Valentines!  Just download the file and print out the pages of your choice – as many as you need. It’s best to print them on photo paper or stock paper and then cut out the cards.  There are 6 mini cards or two folded cards per page.  Write your special message on the back of the mini cards or on the inside of the folded cards. This 13-page file is sold in our shop: Click here This file is for purchase in our shop. Click  Here to visit our shop and purchase it! Enjoy and God Bless! ~JenMarie _____________________________________________ On a personal note:   I mentioned in a past post that I was having a few health problems. I have a lump and pain in my gut, near my hip bone. The doctors are unsure of what the problem is. The doctors think it may be an inflamed lymph-node that could rupture and there is a small fear of cancer and/or a hernia. So, I will be going for surgery this coming Friday (Jan 7th) . The doctors will fix what they can and try to see what the problem is.  I’m not sure how long I’ll be out, it depends on what the surgery shows, so I may or may not post soon.  Please pray for the doctors, my family, and myself.

In the Catholic Church,  November is dedicated to the Holy Souls. So I thought I’d share a few simple and meaningful activities you can do with your kids. Before I talk about what we can do for the souls in purgatory, I want to talk about who these souls are and why it’s important for us to help them. Purgatory is filled with the souls of people who have died with God’s Grace on them but they are not yet holy (aka: sanctified) enough to enter into Heaven. They are in a middle spot between heaven and hell. In Purgatory these souls are meant to be purified so they can enter into eternal life in heaven. Our prayers and good works are the key that they need to enter heaven. There are countless ways to help the souls through prayer and sacrifice. I’m going to share just a few that you can do with your kids so they can see how they can help, too: 1. Take a trip to the cemetery to pray: Take a trip to your parish cemetery to pray a Rosary. This is a great visual reminder of who we are praying for. It helps to make an imprint in a child’s head and it makes the reality of who they are praying for more real.  This trip can be made at anytime, but we like to go on the feast of All Souls (Nov. 2). Feel free to go several times during the month of November – remember the entire month is dedicated to the Holy Souls. (Not that you can’t pray for them after November – they ALWAYS need prayer.) Don’t let bad or cold weather bother you. If you plan to go an a specific day and it ends-up being cold or rainy, go anyway. You can pray in your vehicle while you are parked at the cemetery. Its better to go and stay in the car than not go at all. Also, going on an extra cool and windy day is an extra special sacrifice! 🙂 2. Take time each day to say an extra prayer: Make a list of your family and friends who have died and be sure to add” all the other souls in purgatory” or ”for the least prayed for souls” to your list. Then each night, say an extra prayer for them. I highly recommend that you pray the St. Gertrude prayer. Our Lord told St. Gertrude that this prayer would release 1000 souls from purgatory each time it is said. The prayer was extended to include living sinners as well. Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen. 3. Light a candle in November for the Holy Souls: Take a few minutes after Mass to light a candle for the Holy Souls. You can do this each weekend during November. You can also decorate around a special candle at home or school for the souls. Add some pictures of your deceased relatives and friends around it. If you don’t have pictures, just make a list to set beside your candle. 4. Offer it up! Don’t forget to offer up your bad days, your difficult events, or your painful or uncomfortable times. These may be sad times, but you can use these sad times for good. The souls in purgatory need our help. If you offer these bad things as a prayerful sacrifice to Jesus, He can turn them into good. So remember to ”offer it up.” each time you have something bad to deal with. You can also go to Mass and offer that as a sacrifice for these souls. The Mass is the most perfect prayer and a wonderful way to help the souls in purgatory! So make a special trip to Mass for these souls. 5. Give it up! Another way to sacrifice is to give up something you love. For example, don’t take a desert and offer that up as a sacrifice for the souls in purgatory. Or give up your seat for someone. Let your brother or sister have your turn to pick a movie. These are just a few ways you can give something up to help the souls in purgatory. Remember: **Do to others as you would what want them to do for you.** I’m sure that if you were in purgatory you would want the help of those who could help you, so please try to help these poor souls who need your help so desperately! God bless you all with joy and peace. ~JenMarie

I already posted about this craft in our Good Friday post, but I wanted to share the finished crosses my kids made. They worked hard on these and they had a great time! You will need: Download Instructions - below black paper toothpick (we cut/broke ours in half or smaller) scissors glue Download Instructions Here: To start this craft I recommend drawing a cross onto the paper for the kids to fill in, it makes it easier for them. Have the kids fill in a section of the drawn cross with glue and then cover the glue with toothpicks. Then move onto another section of the cross. Do this until the cross is covered.  Allow the crosses to dry and then cut them out leaving a small black edge around the outside.  Here are a few close-up pictures of a few crosses. This craft was easy and they turned out to be a very nice cross to hang in the kids’ bedrooms! This project was inspired by  Home Grown Learner post. God bless! ~JenMarie

This is a re-post from 2012. We had a few technical problems last year and this coloring page hasn’t been working. Because this beautiful artwork was created by my daughter, Rachel, I asked her to help me fix this so we could re-post it for you all. Download this Divine Mercy Coloring Page Here: Rachel is progressing into a wonderful young artist! But that’s coming from a proud mamma! 😉 Hope you all like it! God Bless. ~JenMarie – AKA: Rachel’s Mom! 😉

The feast day of the Exaltation of the Cross reminds us that Jesus was victories over evil! The cross is a sign of Jesus’ victory! That doesn’t mean we automatically will get to heaven; it means that Jesus has unlocked heaven’s door. It’s up to us to open the door. The only way we can do that is by showing God that we love Him. We need to give God our mind, soul, heart, and body. We need to do our every deed and action for Him! Each time we look at a cross or a crucifix we should remember that we need to give our lives to God because He gave His life for us so we would have the ability to enter heaven. This ornament depicts a cross towering over the world! It was created with tan, dark brown, and light blue felt. We used a green and blue permanent sharpie marker to draw the world on the light blue circle. We added silver glitter glue to the cross and around the cross and earth. We also added gold glitter glue around the tan felt area.  We added a threaded loop of gold thread and hung it on our liturgical tree! We will be posting Our Lady of Sorrows tomorrow! Hope you have a blessed day! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

When my oldest two daughters were about 7 years old, my sister, a few other ladies, and I organized a Little Flowers Girls Club at our parish. Oh, we had such fun! But over the course of time the members all fell away for various reasons and the club meetings happened less often. Eventually they stopped all together.  My girls really enjoyed those meeting so as my younger girls grew to the right age I longed to join another Little Flowers Club with them. I had recently discovered two groups within an hour of our home however both had meeting times that just wouldn’t work. I was so upset. While I was still struggling with whether or not I should try to join one of these groups, I was approached by my cousins, who asked if I was interested in helping them organize a new group. (They were having the same problems as me.) I jumped at the chance! 🙂 So that means I’ll be posting about our Little Flowers activities which we will be doing! Yay!! How cool is that! What is a Little Flowers Girls’ Club? Before I continue, I want to give a little background on this wonderful Catholic club! It’s designed for girls ages 5 and up. While it’s similar in design to Girl Scouts, it’s made for Catholic girls. It’s meant to be a mother and daughter club. The girls are able to get together and learn about saints and virtues from the moms! I know some groups have a single leader and don’t include the mothers, and that’s okay, but I love how this program encourages the mother/parent to work with the girls to earn the badge. It’s a wonderful bonding challenge for the mothers and daughters! This is not a religion course, but it teaches girls about the saints and virtues. It reinforces prayer, kind actions, and good manners. When the girls are able to see other girls who are attempting to grow in faith, it encourages them as they travel on their journey of faith! Visit Behold Publications to learn more: HERE So as we begin our new Little Flowers Girls’ Club adventure, I thought I’d take the time to share the items I bought to help us take the first few steps. This is just a little information for anyone who is thinking of buying some of these items or starting a new LF group, too. Vests and Sashes Of course the girls all needed a vest or a sash. I had bought sashes for my older two girls – many years ago at our first LF club. Rachel and Rebekah had often complained that the sashes didn’t stay in place, so I thought I’d go ahead and try the vests this time. The vests seem fine for my smaller girls. perhaps a little bulky, but my younger girls are small in stature.  On the other hand, Elizabeth (11 years old) thought the vest was too tight.  She has a hard time taking it off. I may decide to buy her a large sash to replace the vest. She tried on her older sisters’ sashes (They are the large deluxe) and that fit her well. Since I have 3 (possibly 4) girls with matching vests. I wanted to be able to tell which vest belonged to whom. So I added a decorative button to the inside bottom corner of the vest. My daughters picked out a button they liked from my button jar and I sewed it on.  Now we can easily avoid a mix-up! 🙂 When my older two daughters had matching sashes I ironed their names on the inside of the sash with iron-on letters. That worked well, too! The Books: First, I bought a for each of my girls. This book is the Member’s guide so the girls can follow along and see what saints and virtues they will be learning about. It also gives the list of requirements that the girls can complete to earn the badges. Using a permanent marker, we wrote the name of the owner on the bottom outside cover, so we could easily tell who owns the book. Since my sister already owned the (from our previous LF club), we did not order this book. But I highly recommend that at least one mom-member of the club has the book to help guide the group. My sister already owned the from our previous LF Club, too. While we did use this to help inspire us years ago, we did not use it a lot. This was mainly because we created crafts of our own which were not in this book. If you are not a crafty person and have no idea what to do, then you may want to buy this book for the group to share. I also ordered the book. This seems like a handy book to help us with all sorts of ceremonies – from badge ceremonies to May Crownings! I’m sure I’ll be making use of this! I decided to purchase the book because (as some of my followers may recall) we have a Marian Tea party at our house every May. So I thought our club could join us this coming May! I thought perhaps this book might have some ideas to help us along! I’ll let you know when we start planning for this! The book seems to be a cute book with sweet stories to help the girls understand the virtues. While I’m not sure exactly how we plan to use this book yet, I’m sure it will fit in nicely some how. I’ll let you know how we decide to use it! ●▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬●✿●▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Well, this is our start to this new Little Flowers adventure!! I know my girls are looking forward to it! Hope you will enjoy the upcoming Little Flowers Club posts! I hope they will be useful for those who are planning Little Flower meets, as well as, those who are just looking for fun activities to do and/or create! God’s Blessing! ~JenMarie

Hi, everyone! How is your Advent going? I hope well! Ours is just as busy as always! I had promised to post about our Little Flowers Girl’s Club meetings. We have had three meetings now and I still haven’t posted any of them! Well, I’m going to jump to our third meeting and post about it since it was all centered around Our Lady of Guadalupe. I thought you might be more interested in seeing this now than in a month – just because it’s Our Lady’s Feast day! Our meeting started out with a adorable on-the-spot play of Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe. No prep or planning, just a fun spontaneous acting. The play was acted out by our club’s oldest member who was Our Lady of Guadalupe. The other parts were done by some of the Little Flowers’ older siblings. A simple story was read and the kids just acted out what was being read. They had no practice, nor did they read the story beforehand. It made for a funny and easy activity! The Little Flowers all LOVED it! I prepared the costumes before the meeting. The only fancy costume was Our Lady’s. This is the costume which I created as an All Saint’s Day costume for Rebekah a few years ago. See it HERE . Juan Diego’s Costume was just a sombrero and a raggy piece of material for his tilma. The other costumes were simple robes, and pieces of cloth. It was a very simplistic activity, but boy did they all enjoy it!  I printed out an image of Our Lady to put on the tilma. I stuck velcro on the back of the image so it would cling to the material that we used for the tilma. Then during the play, Our Lady secretly placed it on Juan’s tilma as she “arranged” the roses. Surprise! There it was when Juan showed the roses to the bishop! After the play the girls made the Liturgical Ornament of Our Lady of Guadalupe . This took a little prep-time, but it was well worth it! My mother and Elizabeth helped to cut the pieces out. We laid them out to be sure we had all the pieces for each one and then I bagged them up in little baggies so I could easily pass them out to the girls. Note the coffee cup in the picture!! Totally need that! So don’t forget it! I did decide to add the gold and red glitter fabric paint to Mary’s veil and the sun before the meeting. I thought about having the girls do this themselves but I thought it would be less stressful for the moms if this was done beforehand. All of the Little Flowers’ had a great time making these! They all turned out so beautifully! After that, we all had a snack and had a great time talking and playing together. Perfect party and meeting! Have a blessed Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!! ~JenMarie

Sept. 23 is the feast day of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Here are a few copywork pages you might like to use after discussing this wonderful saint! I created 6 different sheets with 2 different quotes.  The levels range from early writing to cursive writing. So you can choose the learning levels you need. The two quotes are: “The devil is capable of confusing the most brilliant mind.” – St. Pio  “Don’t allow any sadness to dwell in your soul, for sadness prevents the Holy Spirit from acting freely.” – St. Pio St. Pio was such an amazing man. These two quotes are so down-to-earth and give us such a great perspective on our need to stay alert and God-centered  during our lives. We need to keep joy in our hearts and we need to be humble. Without joy and humility the devil will win over us.  Joy and humility do not come easy. They are a mindset that we must work hard to gain – during every moment  of each day. In order to gain them we must realize that God is in control and His plan will always be the right way – We must TRUST at all times .   – Be still and know I am God. –Psalm 46 Download This Work Sheet Here: May God bless your day with His joy and peace! ~Jen-Marie

Earlier this summer my older teen daughters had their cousins over for a sleepover. The girls were looking for a craft to do, so we quickly whipped together a simple- yet useful – project. These are upcycled boxes covered in Catholic images from old cards, magazines, and catalogs! To make these you will need: boxes – We used cardboard craft boxes ($1.00 at AC Moore), but you could also use paper mache boxes or wooden boxes. images from, old cards, religious mail, religious catalogs, etc. scissors mod-podge paint brush Just cut out a bunch of images and arrange the images on the box. After you are happy with your design, use mod-podge to the back of the images and attach them to the box. After the glue has dried decoupaged the boxes – covered the images with a few thin layers of mod-podge to make them smooth and strong enough to withstand use. Allow the mod-podge to dry between coats. The girls created lots of different faith-centered designs! Some of the decorations they even added to the inside of the box lid. Our boxes were bought at AC Moore. Most craft stores have lots of boxes to choose from. You could upcycle tissue boxes, cereal boxes, and other boxes, too! Cover them with paper first if needed. Happy Catholic crafting!! God bless you all with joy! ~Jen-Marie

Mother’s day is coming during the month of May – which is also the month we honor our heavenly mother, Mary. It’s a great time to think about flowers! So with this in mind, I created this printable bouquet and vase! It has beautiful flowers and a sweet image of Our Lady holding the infant Jesus. This paper bouquet is easy to make and could be a beautiful gift for mom or grandma. It also would be a beautiful decoration for your May altar or use it as a centerpiece for your table! I know we will be using ours as decorations for our Mother Mary Tea party this year! Although we made ours for the month of May, these are 100% perfectly usable on any Marian feast day!  So feel free to create this project anytime! To create this you will need: the printable pages - Download below colored pencils or crayons scissors stapler or tape (we used a stapler) glue or glue stick 7 oz disposable plastic cup – ours were 3 1/2 inches tall. a sheet of green tissue paper a sheet of green construction paper Download the Vase Craft Here: First print the pages (regular paper is fine). Color the Mary and Jesus image, the butterflies and flowers. If you are giving this as a gift, you can write a message to the recipient in the boxed area below Mary. Note: the printable does not have the writing under Mary as it’s pictured in the image above. We added that to this sample. Once you have colored it the way you like, cut out all the parts. Staple (or tape) the one end of the Mary box to the other – to form a tube. Add the 7 oz plastic disposable cup to the inside of the tube and staple the top of it to the top of the paper tube (in the back) Be sure it’s sitting level before you staple it.  Note: The paper tube is not tight around the cup. If you make it tight it is more likely to wrinkle and/or fall over. The plastic cup will help keep your flowers and greens from falling out. Now, fold the butterflies in half and open them up again. Staple the middle of the butterfly to the area around image of Mary. (or tape it down) This will give them a flying-3D look. Cut your sheet of tissue paper in half. Then cut each half in half again – diagonally. Take the middle of each part and form a point. Stuff the point into the cup along with some green leaf-like strips, which were cut from the green construction paper. If you don’t have green tissue paper you can just fill the cup with green strips of paper, but the tissue is a much better filler. Now fluff-out the greens and add your flowers.  Some of my kids fluffed theirs out so much it made these kind-of top heavy. When they finished creating them they sat fine, but if it’s frustrating to the child, add a few small rocks to the bottom of the cup. Use a glue stick to attach the flowers to the greenery. There you have it – a beautiful bouquet! You’re ready to be a florist!! 🙂 This bouquet craft can be enjoyed by a wide variety of ages. Obviously, the quality will not be as great for younger kids, but they can still enjoy it. Here is one my 4 year old made. My 4 year old, Caleb, was thrilled with his! He sat and admired it for quite awhile before he moved it into his special place in his bedroom. 🙂 Here are a few more examples which my girls created: We had light and dark green tissue paper. I thought I’d show you both so you can decide which shade of green you like best. This could be a small group activity! A small group of kids could make one bouquet together. There are 9 flowers, 2 butterflies, and the Mary vase which all need colored. Allow the children to pick the part they want to color. Then they can all share in the assembly of the bouquet. This is great way for a few siblings to create one of these bouquets for Grandma or Mom! Enjoy! ~JenMarie