St. Monica and St. Augustine were mother and son, so we kept them together. St. Monica, the patron saint of mothers, prayed many, many years for the conversion of her wayward son. Finally, he converted and sang the praises of God to all those he met! At the age of 41 he became bishop of Hippo.   Read more HERE and HERE . St. Monica’s feast day is Aug. 27 (new) & May 4 (traditional)  St. Augustine’s feast day is Aug. 28 (new & trad.) I have to tell you we had a bit of a time deciding how to do this one. Of course we made a few jokes and said we should make a hippo wearing a bishop’s miter, since Augustine was the bishop of Hippo, but in the end I think this was a MUCH better idea! St. Monica and St. Augustine are often pictured with a book, so we decided to make a book and add another symbol for each one of them. Because St. Monica is sometimes pictured with flowers we added a flower for her. St. Augustine is often show with a flaming heart which is pierced with an arrow so we added that for him.  The book is made from maroon and white felt. We added the ”print” with a black permanent sharpie marker. It’s just simple dots lined up in rows. We also outlined the pages with a brown sharpie marker.  The flower was made by creating two purple flowers (one larger and one smaller) and a small pink circle. I used a purple marker to outline the flower parts. Augustine’s heart is red and outlined with a purple marker – yes, purple. The flame is yellow and was outlined with an orange marker. The arrow is dark brown and was slid through a small slit in the heart. All the parts were hot glued together. St. Monica and St. Augustine, Pray for us! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth Visit our Etsy shop to purchase our St. Monica felt statue

Catholic Cultures wed site had a beautiful description of St. Rose that says: "Rose of Lima, a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic, was the ’first blossom of sanctity that South America gave to the world.' Hers was a life heroic in virtue and penance…” Visit their site to read more about her. You can also visit Catholic.org  to read more, too. St. Rose of Lima’s feast day is Aug. 23 (new) and Aug. 30 (trad.). Elizabeth and I were going to add roses to a wreath for St. Rose’s ornament, but decided that it was a bit difficult to make all those little roses. So we made the flowers more simple.  We cut out pink and purple flowers and arranged them on a green circle/wreath. We glued two strips of dark brown felt into a cross shape and then glued it onto the wreath. Next we added a few green leaves among the flowers.  To make it pop, we added a few drops of silver glitter glue and it turned out to be a sweet ornament to honor St. Rose of Lima. St. Rose, oh beautiful saint so kind and loving, intercede for us. Ask Our Lord to grant us all that we need to enter into heaven.  St. Rose of Lima, pray for us! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth Visit our Etsy store to buy our St. Rose of Lima felt statue .

For the Coronation of Mary (Aug. 22 -new calendar), Elizabeth wanted to make a sparkly crown with gems.  While I’m sure this isn’t even close to being as pretty as Mary’s real crown, it is very sparkly! To make this Elizabeth first made a crown shape from a gold pipe cleaner. We then glued it onto a scrap piece of yellow felt.  Then we cut out around the pipe cleaner so the yellow was only seen on the inside of the crown shape.  Now for the fun part!! Elizabeth added glitter glue to the yellow felt. Then she used sequins and star sequins to make the gems on the crown. She also added a little bit of red glitter glue to the bottom! She was very pleased with her sparkly crown! ♪ ♫ Hail Holy Queen enthroned above…. Have a blessed day! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

St. Helena (aka: St. Helen) is the Mother of Emperor Constantine and found the true cross of Christ. Her feast day is Aug. 18 (traditional calendar). Read more about her HERE and HERE .  Elizabeth and I got a little glitter glue happy with this one! The design is simple, but the glitter glue made it sing! 😮 ♪ ♫  We made 7 rays from yellow felt and added a bit of orange permanent marker to them to make them look more interesting. We glued them onto a white oval which as a little bigger than the cross we had made from two strips of dark brown felt.  We added silver glitter glue to the white area and gold glitter glue to the yellow area. We also added a bit of red glitter glue to the yellow area and three drops on the cross.  St. Helena, pray for us! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

The feast of Mary’s Holy Name is Sept. 12th.  There is great power behind Mary’s name! Read about this devotion HERE .  ”Men do not fear a powerful hostile army as the powers of hell fear the name and protection of Mary.” -Saint Bonaventure Elizabeth and I were trying to make this ornament look kind-of heavenly. So we have two sparkly clouds and a sparkly sun. Plus, we have sparkles all over Mary’s name which is written in the clouds.  We used white felt with sparkles, yellow felt, and light blue felt. We cut out two cloud shapes from the sparkly white felt, a half-circle from the yellow, and a rectangle which is big enough to fit the clouds and sun on.  We outlined the yellow with an orange permanent marker and we added gold glitter glue to it. We glued the two clouds together and used blue fabric paint to write Mary’s name on the clouds. Once that dried we covered it with clear-sparkle fabric paint. After that was dry we glued all the parts onto the blue rectangle. Next, we added silver glitter glue around the edge of the clouds. And we added gold glitter glue around the sun. We also created rays coming from the sun. Once it was all dry we cut out around the clouds and sun. These pictures don’t do this justice. It’s just full of sparkle! Most Holy Mary, Queen above, Pray for us! May every evil flea whenever we whisper the Holy Name of Mary! God Bless. ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

St. Peter Claver is known as the ”Apostle of the Negroes”.  St. Peter dedicated himself to the service of the Negro slaves for over thirty-three years. He was devoted to saving the souls of the African slaves and to abolishing the Negro slave trade.  Read more HERE . His feast day is Sept. 9th,  the day after Our Lady’s Birthday . The ornament for St. Peter Claver is two hands and a cross. The lighter colored hand is giving the cross to the darker colored hand. This is a symbol of St. Peter giving the Catholic faith to the African people who were forced into slavery.  The ornament is made with white, peach/tan, medium brown and dark brown felt. Cut out two hands: one medium brown and one preach/tan. Then cut out two strips from the dark brown felt to form the cross. Glue them onto the white felt square. We used red, orange, and yellow permanent markers to add some color to the white felt. This is now hanging on our liturgical tree. St. Peter Claver, pray for us. May we understand each other and help each other grow closer to God even when we look and/or live differently. God Bless. ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

For the birth of Our Lady (Sept. 8th), Elizabeth and I wanted to make a liturgical ornament that was filled with baby cuteness! So we made a pink baby and to confirm that this isn’t just any baby girl, we added an Immaculate Heart. This Immaculate Heart is a little different than the regular Immaculate Heart. We wanted this Immaculate Heart to look baby-like, so we made it pink! We also didn’t add the sword, since Mary wouldn’t have had any heart breaking experiences yet. To create this ornament you will need: Felt: pink, light blue, medium blue, yellow, and light brown/peach Permanent markers: orange, pink, green, and red markers. Glitter Glue: gold, silver, and a little red (optional)  Cut out the parts as pictured above. Make Mary first and size everything based off of her. You could glue Mary’s head on top of her blanket-body but it looks nicer if it’s seen through a hole in the pink blanket.  We used pink and red permanent marker to shade the pink blanket that Mary is ”wrapped” in. And we used orange marker on the edge of her halo. We also added gold glitter glue to make the halo sparkle. Glue it all together before you add the glitter or add the glitter to the halo and wait for the halo to dry before you glue everything together. (We used hot glue.) After Baby Mary and all the other parts are glued down, cut out a pink heart and flame. Use the pink permanent sharpie marker to make flowers. Just make 5 or 6 dots in a circle shape and add a yellow dot in the middle area. Then add a few green marker leaves around them. We used a red marker around the edge of the heart. Cut out a yellow flame for the top of the heart. We added gold and red glitter glue to the flame and silver glitter glue around the heart.   Personally, I love this ornament! I think it’s so cute! I hope you like it, too! Mother Mary, Happy Birthday!! God Bless, ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

One way I like to help my kids learn and retain knowledge of our faith is through Catholic picture dictionaries. Their simple design makes them easy to pick-up and read when you have only a few free minutes. To help them retain these words and meanings, I created a “Catholic Words” printable notebooking sheet. This page has space for: the name of the Catholic word they are learning the definition (some definitions may need to be shortened) a picture of the idea/item, if possible Each page has space for 3 words. My kids have these pages in a 3-ring binder and they add a word a day. They do this during the school day when they are finished all their other work and they are waiting on me to check/help them. Each night I write a Catholic word onto our blackboard. Then, during school time the next day, they pull out their Catholic dictionary look up the word and write it down, along with the definition. They also draw a picture of the item or idea if they can. These are the books we used to look up the Catholic words: This book is the one my older kids use: The Catholic Picture Dictionary – by S.J. Rev. Harold A. Pfeiffer (Author) This one was better for the younger kids: My First Catholic Picture Dictionary - by Lawrence Lovasik (Author) Has anyone ever use this book? I’m wondering if it’s good: A Catholic Child's Picture Dictionary - by Ruth Hannon (Author) Vocabulary Sheets Along with the “Catholic Words” sheet I created a “vocabulary” sheet. This one is for everyday words. My kids use this one when they come across a word they don’t know. They write it down and look it up. The word area on this page has space for: the word the definition antonyms synonyms a sentence and they can draw a picture, if possible These are also kept in the same 3-ring binder. They have a page with a tab between the two sections. Both these pages and a cover page are available below. Download these vocabulary pages here: Enjoy! Hope you have a blessed school year! ~JenMarie

For the feast of the Holy Name of Mary we made a simple sugar cookie dessert. We used our sugar cookie recipe and our M-A-R-Y cookie cutters to make a super yummy dessert! To give our cookies a blue color we added blue sugar to the top of the cookies before we baked them.  Of course, we realized too late that we didn’t have any more blue decorating sugar. So we made some! Just place 3 or 4 tablespoons of granulated sugar into a zip-loc bag and then add a drop or two of blue food coloring. Zip up the bag and give it a good shake! If the sugar very wet you can spread it on out on wax paper to dry, but we just used our blue sugar as it was.  The cookies came out of the oven with a blue glitter look! Perfect for Mary! Once they were cool we used some whipped cream from a spray can to make a long row of cream. Then we added the M-A-R-Y letters to the front of the row. Here is Mary’s name written in the clouds!! *Don’t have the letter cookie cutters? That’s okay! If you don’t have alphabet cookie cutters, try making the letter by hand. Maybe roll out the dough and hand-cut the letters with a knife. Or make the letters by creating long strains or ropes of rolled dough (my kids call them snakes) and form the long strains into the letter shapes. It’s a great activity for kids of all ages! Super yummy and fun! Have a blessed day! ~JenMarie

Things have been busy around my house, so I’m a little late getting the September ornaments out. Since I can’t post all of the Sept. ornaments today, I’m just going to quickly post St. Anna the Prophetess, who feast day is historically Sept. 1. St. Anna the Prophetess was in the temple the day of Jesus Presentation. She was over-joyed to see Jesus and spoke about him to all who were there.(Luke 2:21-38) St. Anna’s ornament is a scroll and it reads: ”This child has created Heaven and Earth.” It was made using off-white felt, which was cut into a long rectangle (about 1 inch x 3 inches). The outer edge of the rectangle is out-lined with brown permanent marker.  The sentence was added with a black permanent marker. I recommend that you draw the letters by creating dots. Using lots of dots to form the letters will make the letters look cleaner. If you draw the letters as you would on paper they can look fuzzy. Plus, it’s just easier to write on felt that way! 🙂  Next, the ends of the rectangle were hot glued and rolled up so they look more like a scroll.  St. Anna, pray for us! May our eyes always be open and able to see Jesus in the faces of others. God Bless. ~JenMarie and my crafting buddy, Elizabeth Personal Update: My surgery went well. The doctor was to remove my last remaining ovary in the hopes to end my endometriosis pain. After the surgery, he said my ovary was missing it’s ”webbing”. It was hanging loose and bumping into my intestines which had created a hernia. So he fixed the hernia, too. Now the ovary is gone and the hernia is fixed. My doctor thinks I should be feeling great in a few weeks – just about the time I’ll start having menopause set in. Aside from that, things are going wonderfully and I’m feeling improvement each day!  Thank you so much for all your prayers! I know they have helped!

Saint Gregory the Great is the patron saint of teachers. He is one of the four great doctors of the Latin Church and his feast day is Sept. 3 on the new calendar (March 12 on the Traditional calendar). He built 7 monasteries and is know for his contributions to the Liturgy of the Mass and Office. He was also pope from the 3rd of September in 590 to his death on March 12th 604. Read more about him HERE . The ornament for Gregory the Great consists of a book with a quill pen, a Papal Tiara with the three crowns, and the Holy Spirit.  We made it with maroon, yellow, light brown, white and off-white felt. Plus, we used brown and black permanent markers on the book pages, as well as, the quill pen.  We used gold glitter glue on the yellow crowns (on the Papal Tiara) and we added a few drops of red glitter glue to add ”gem”. Later we decided to add a Holy Spirit. (Ya, we make this all up as we go along! Just bear with me!) We glued all the parts onto the light brown felt and we added silver glitter glue around the Holy Spirit.  St. Gregory the Great, pray for us – especially us mother who homeschool or those who are teachers! We have a big job and always need help! God Bless, ~JenMarie

Last year my two 4th graders were learning about the Making of the Thirteen Colonies. We were reading Book 2 of ““. The book included a simple timeline. So I created this timeline page for my kids to use so they could create their own timeline notebook. Each of the pages includes a section for them to write the topic of the timeline. It also has writing blocks so the kids can write the date and a little about the historical event. The kids also “finished” drawing the line from the writing blocks to the timeline line which is in the middle of the page. We placed our timelines in a 3 ring binder and added a cover page to the front of the binder. Then the kids could add a page as they work their way through history! There are two versions of this timeline. One runs side to side on a vertical page and the other runs side to side on a horizontal page. Each as a cover to match the direction of the pages you choose. I first made the horizontal timeline page, but the vertical pages seemed to be easier for my kids to understand, as they flip from one page to the next. Choose whichever you like best: Download the Timeline Sheets Here: These are great pages to use if you are creating mini biographies of famous people like the saints, and they work well when learning about any topic of history – Church history, US history or world history. These were great to have last year and I plan to use them again this year as we work through book 3 and 4 in the “A History of US” set. Hope you are having a great school year! God Bless. ~JenMarie