This book is for all women

Choosing beauty, by Gina Loehr $24.95

This book stems from the author’s realisation, one Ash Wednesday morning, that she was addicted to her makeup. In this book, Loehr outlines a basis for reflection, and plan of action through which women can be their most beautiful.

We will never reach the fullness of our physical beauty until we have reached the fullness of our spiritual beauty – food for thought, and the central premise of this book.

Through real life examples and friendly explanations of the teachings of the Catholic Church, Loehr exposes the myths of beauty and appearance and instead, explains what real beauty is, and how we can achieve it.

‘Choosing beauty’ helps girls and women work through issues like gossiping,  insecurities about appearance, and gives them practical tips for leading a virtuous life. Loehr explains: ‘whenever you choose virtue, you are also choosing beauty.’

It certainly encourages you to take stock of your life, assess your spiritual warts and wrinkles, as well as providing example of ‘beautiful’ women to inspire you.

This book is also versatile and can be used individually, or as a text for group discussion, as a resource for youth ministers trying to encourage inner beauty in the young women they work with, and it’s also a great book for mothers and daughters to work through together.

At times, the questions for discussion were confronting, Loehr encourages the reader to think, and break free from our slavery to social vanity. Through this book, teenage girls and women of all ages, can reclaim their ‘feminine genius’ and encourage others to do the same.

I highly recommend this book to all women over the age of 13 and especially for any female who has ever felt insecure about the way they look – this book will change the way you see yourself!

Get a copy here.

The Assumption of Mary

This is a really simple activity you can make without needing many materials at all.

You will need:
Coloured paper - green, blue and white
Cardboard (thin card like cereal boxes)
White pencil
Glue
Scissors
Craft or stanley knife

Instructions: Cut your card to A4 size and glue blue sheet of A4 paper on top. Rip a strip of green paper and glue to bottom of blue paper to form the land. Rip or cut out white paper to make clouds and glue on, then using your white pencil draw on lines to form a light coming from Heaven to represent God's assuming of Mary into Heaven. Then mark out a line running through the middle of your work like this:

And cut with your knife.
Next print out the template of Mary:

Colour and then using a strip of card about 3cm wide and 20cm long fold and attach to the back of Mary so that it looks like this:

Now you can simply push this through the slit on your background and you are right to go. For little hands clipping a peg onto the cardboard makes it easier to control Mary as she travels up and down your work.
Enjoy!

Saint Amelia and Blessed Yvette

A couple more dolls made as a present for a couple of cousins. Saint Amelia is on the left and Blessed Yvette is on the right.

The dolls are based on the original sketches below:

And also included a bookmark with details of the lives of each, their feastday and of what they are now the patron:

Saints for kids

My husband and I decided that we would give all of our children saints names as their Christian names, which many people do. But we wanted our children to really look to that saint as some one to emulate and when it comes to some saints it's hard to get information about them, let alone a picture.

Not being one that is daunted by a challenge I ended up finding information for Saints Jerome, Madeleine Sophie Barat and Georgia. However when it came to Saint Georgia I was unable to find a picture so based on her life story and the time in which she lived I ended up designing an image that was very kid-friendly for my own 2 year old Georgia. And of course, once you design one for one child...

So here are the pictures:

Which I transfered onto t-shirts:

And then converted to handmade dolls for the kids to play with:

Email me if you would like to see a design for your child's patron saint or favourite Biblical figure!

Saint George the Knight

I have been thinking a lot lately about how susceptible our young children are to branding and mass marketing. My kids were watching 'Mike the Knight' on ABC2 the other day and I thought,why not give them a role model like Saint George to emulate rather than Mike? So here's my offering, a helmet and shield so my kids can pretend to be Saint George and defeat dragons (which have always been a visual metaphor for Satan in artworks depicting Saint George).

What you'll need:An old cap
Cardboard (old cereal boxes are perfect)
Elastic (about 20cm)
Stapler
Coloured paper
scissors
Craft glue
Feather
Pipe cleaner

Instructions: Helmet: Adjust cap to fit your child's head. Cut out templates (below).Colour helmet template and using craft glue (and some pegs to hold it in place until it dries) glue helmet template to the back of your cap. Wind a pipe cleaner around top button of cap and use to attach feather. Use craft glue for extra hold.
Shield: Cut our template. Affix elastic to back of shield using stapler (I also covered the staples with masking tape).

Turn shield over and decorate.I chose a traditional sword design with 4 pictures which each represent something to do with Saint George. Crown: God's kindgom, Cross:Jesus, Sword: battle, soldier etc and a dragon: which represents our eternal struggle against sin and the devil.

I hope your kids have as much fun dressing up as Saint George as my kids do!