It’s Monday again. Time for a recap of a few fabulous ideas from around the web. All of these sites were featured on my Facebook fan page last week so, if you haven’t had a chance, you should check them out. If you liked them as much as I did, take a minute and let the content authors know. Bloggers love comments; so share the love when you stop by their sites.

Remember, if you’d like instant access to the links I love and a few other tips and tricks, you can sign up to be a follower on Facebook by clicking the Facebook icon at the top of the page or by following this link and then clicking the Like button. Here are the links from last week…

Taste Spotting

I love looking at vibrant blog photography; especially when the the pictures are focused on fabulous foods like the recipe links found on this great site.

The Idea Room

Want to add a splash of color to your kids’ bath and get them cleaner at the same time? Check out this cool bath paint tutorial.

Skip To My Lou

Tomorrow is the first official day of summer for my kids. I think we’ll kick things off with one of my favorite childhood FHE treats – homemade pulled taffy like the recipe on this wonderful site.

Speaking of Christmas planning, for those of you utilizing the free planning downloads from last year, I’ve updated the calendar for 2009.  I’ll add the file to this post so you can start scheduling your month of organized merriment.

If you haven’t had a chance to print out your family’s refrigerator advent calendar this year, it’s not too late.  My kids race to get dressed in the morning just so they can earn the right to color in the ornament for the day.  I haven’t had to nag all week!  How can you resist that?

If you are following my weekly Christmas plan, you’ll know that writing Santa letters is scheduled for next week.  We usually do this activity during Family Home Evening…after we’ve had a lesson about the true meaning of Christmas.  We talk a lot about the Christmas Spirit and how it’s important to show our love for others all year.  When they’re writing their letters, we encourage them to skip the standard “I’ve been really good this year” sentence for a more specific “I’ve shown the Christmas spirit by…”.  This simple shift really helps my kids keep their wish lists in perspective.  Plus, it’s really fun my husband and I to read what they come up with.

To make the letter writing a little more fun and festive this year, I created some cute Santa stationery.  The first version includes a partially-written letter so my young kids can just fill in the blanks with pictures.  The second file is a more basic, lined layout for my older kids.  You can find both files available for free download below.  Just thought I’d pass it on.

So for this week’s Talk to Me Tuesday post I’m asking for your FHE input.  What strategies do you use to keep your family on track?  What websites or resources do you use to plan fun and easy family home evenings?  What’s your family’s favorite way to spend a Monday night?  As always, tor those of you who comment, thanks – in advance – for passing it on.

As a side note, although I’m not the best source for advice on staying on top of Family Home Evenings, I can show you how to make a quick and easy chart to keep track of everyone’s FHE jobs.  I made this one a few months ago with a small dry erase board and the leftovers from my Family Big Board project.   The entire project cost me about $10 and only took about 15 minutes to make.  If you’re in the market for a new FHE board, you might want to give this one a shot.  Just thought I’d pass it on.

Two years ago my husband and I decided to purchase scriptures for each of our kids. Although they were pretty excited to have them at first, the scriptures quickly lost their luster for my young, non-reading kids. I needed a way to show them that the familiar stories they’d heard about in Primary and Family Home Evening were actually in their scriptures. I struggled to find an inexpensive solution when it suddenly hit me. Why not put the pictures we use in Family Home Evening and Primary right onto the pages of their scriptures?

I spent the next several weeks downloading and adapting the free Gospel Art Kit images from the LDS website. With the help of some powerful graphic design software, fabulous specialty sticker paper, and a lot of trial and error I was finally able to create the perfect set of scripture stickers. They were vivid, transparent, durable, and ultra-thin. Best of all, they were inexpensive and incredibly functional!

My kids loved having them in their scriptures.  All of a sudden they were able to “chase” each other to find familiar scripture stories scattered throughout their scriptures. In fact, most of the time, they could find them faster than I could. Not one to be outdone by my 3 year-old, I decided to make an adult version as well. I didn’t want large stickers in my scriptures, so I resized the images and moved them down into the footnotes area. They worked beautifully.

Over the course of the next two years, I created loads of other incredibly useful scripture stickers for our family. I made custom book plates for my kids and my young women class, replaced my old flimsy bookmarks with full-page reference stickers, and made my scripture mastery scriptures more searchable with margin tags.

Overall, I can honestly say that these simple, inexpensive scripture stickers have drastically improved the way my family enjoys and uses our scriptures.  Naturally, when I find a solution that works this well for my family, I’m more than happy to pass it on to you. After all, it seems a shame for you to waste your time creating all these files when I’ve got them sitting on my laptop. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be posting the files I used for my stickers as well as easy, do-it-yourself  instructions.  The custom book plates will not be available for download, but the finished stickers will be available for purchase.

I’ve created the new MeckMom Store to give you an opportunity to buy all the supplies you’ll need at big cost savings.  So why not put something special under the tree this year? In addition to great family Christmas gifts, they’re also the perfect choice for Primary birthdays, Baptisms, Young Women/Men gifts, Seminary class awards, and Missionary milestones. I offer all the paper and packaging materials in the store as well as bulk pricing and gift packaging for large group orders like the one shown here.

I’ll be posting the various files and the instructions over the course of the next few days, so pay a visit to the MeckMom Store and stock up on your sticker supplies today! Trust me, this is a MeckMom solution you don’t want to miss. Just thought I’d pass it on.

This post is the 1st in a series of 4 scripture sticker posts.  To view the others, click the links below:

Part 2: Gospel Art Kit Sticker Tutorial

Part 3: Bookmark Scripture Sticker Tutorial

Part 4: Scripture Mastery & GAK Margin Tags Tutorial