Category: imported

Homemade Advent Calendars: Links of Lightbulbs (6)

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These are some of the coolest homemade Advent Calendars I have found online. 
 Please add your favorites to the linky below!

Homemade Advent Calendars
are great to reveal Jesse Tree Ornaments, Nativity figures and  Advent challenges
I was also thinking that the pockets (as they are emptied day by day) could then be filled with “Secret Saint” messages.  You know, instead of “Secret Santa”…good deeds or sacrifices offered and recorded for one another, to be shared on Christmas day.  I know…it’s a little like my Advent Mailbox Wreath last year,
a fun way to keep the little messages and something from-the-heart-and-not-the-store
to open on Christmas Day.

(1) The Recycle Bin Advent Calendar would hang nicely in a tight spot and has good-sized pockets to hide small items.
(2) I love the Toilet Paper Roll Calendar!  Another great way to recycle TP rolls…and takes up minimal space on the wall!

(3) Matchbox Advent Calendar:  I have always wanted to use little matchboxes as little drawers and this is a great compact way to arrange them.

(4) Booklet Advent Calendar.  I love the way this booklet fans out to show the little pockets. I bet I could turn it into a “Lazy Susan” with a paper towel roll, a TP roll and a plastic plate.
See the Stations of the Cross Carousel for a visual!

(5) Check this link out for 30 of the Best Advent Calendars!

Links of Light Bulbs is brought to you by EquippingCatholicFamilies.com,
a division of Arma Dei.
Your turn!

Special Offer for Catholic Bookstore Owners!!! Free Fun Craft Kit to teach the New Mass for 10 Catholic bloggers!

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The countdown is on! 
The New English Translation of the Mass will begin very soon!

The Color Me Catholic:
Roman Missal Edition
makes 10 booklets,  each with a different selection of phrases of the New Mass  (in chronological order) to get us all familiar with the new text. 
The little booklets also have 8 great coloring pages each,
with illustrations teaching
the Vessels,
  the Vestments,
  Symbols, Church Furnishings,
Parts of the Mass,
   Sacramentals
and Sacraments!

I am offering free downloads for
Catholic Bookstore Owners
who would like to review this craft kit
and possibly carry it at their store!
You can copy the kit and hand out a booklet for each customer…
Keep the kids busy in your store while their Moms shop and get happy Moms returning to your store! 
Leave a comment below or email me for your free download!

YOU get to download, print and color these 10 booklets within your family …have them in hand at the first 10 Masses of the new Liturgical Calendar …and then you can print them again for the next 10 Masses!

Watch as your children become more familiar with the New Text of the Mass and the awesome Artifacts of our Catholic Faith!
To apply to receive a FREE download of
Color Me Catholic: Roman Missal Edition, please submit a comment below or email me privately at
Monica{at}ArmaDei{dot}com.  Please include the name of your Catholic blog and “free Color Me Catholic” in the subject line of your email!

Catholic Conferences…it’s not too late to submit your favorite!

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before the voting starts?
I just extended the linky submission deadline.
(1) Conferences (and retreats and prayer events) for Catholics
(2) Conferences for Religious Educators
(3) Conferences for Bookstore Owners
(4) Conferences for Homeschoolers
(5) Favorite Conferences…not necessarily Catholic!

A fun way to teach kids the new Mass! Countdown is on!

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Looking for a fun way
to teach kids the new Mass?

Color Me Catholic: New Roman Missal Edition!

Cathletics Craft Kit TM

Monica McConkey (Author)  

Look inside Color Me Catholic
Check out the **NEW**VIDEO**
Color Me Catholic Tutorial 

Purchase NOW
and receive your kit INSTANTLY
to print at home! 
Visit our new
Craft Kit Printables Online Store
 (or click on the “add to cart” button below!)
Downloadable PDF version
Price: $14 U.S.
Add to Cart

Product Details
1 color cover, 20 black and white templates (double-sided printing), 3 black and white templates for the instructions and folder, permission to photocopy for single household or single class term use, all contained in a clear plastic 11″x 9″ envelope.


Instructions and templates to create 10 mini-booklets, each offering 8 mini coloring pages of treasured Vessels, Vestments & Symbols, Church Furnishings, Parts of the Mass and Sacraments & Sacramentals plus 8 pages of phrases from the New Roman Missal Mass in sequential order. 
A template is also included to create a folder to hold the booklets.

The full collection allows for exposure to most of the text of the Mass (especially all the “People’s Parts”) and many images, easily reviewed over 10 Masses.  Why not re-circulate the booklets for the next 10 Masses, for even better familiarity, getting kids to look and listen during Mass?

Publisher:  Arma Dei (2011)

Language:  English
Product Dimension:  9″x11″
Printed Weight: 94g

Paper Version Price: $16 U.S. plus shipping

Visit our Cathletics Craft Kit page to see our other Cathletics Craft Kits available in the paper version.

Easy, Affordable and AWESOME Widgets & Services for Newbie Bloggers: Lists of Links (5)

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(1) inlinkz Link Tool
$19.99/year for thumbnail linkies:   text linkies are FREE….but thumbnail linkies are way more interesting!

(2) Grab my button Generator FREE and easy to use!  I tried generating my own, following other tutorials, but this is so easy!  I do love designing buttons and I like to share them.
(3) e-Junkie pdf manager $5/month to sell pdfs online.  I was trying payloadz, but it costs quite a bit more

(4) google docs offers a FREE service to store documents online for easy access.  Scribd was starting to require payment from people who downloaded frequently?

(5) Link Within FREE widget to show related posts at the end of blog posts

(6) Mail Chimp FREE for mailing lists (<2000 subscribers and up to 12000 emails/month); lots of templates  and monitoring...especially helpful for non-blogging small companies

Has anyone else discovered any
easy, affordable (maybe even free!) 
and awesome widgets or services
they would like to share? 
Please add them in the comments so that I can add them to the list!

Links of Light Bulbs is brought to you by EquippingCatholicFamilies.com, a division of Arma Dei.

Catholic Conferences: List of Links (4)

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Please note: this is a work in progress!

I am gradually adding as many conferences as possible within the different linkies.  Please be patient…we’re on the 4th sick kid in the family…in a week.  Feel free to speed up the process and add some conference links!  Don’t worry if you can’t add the thumbnail images…I will try to add them later.

Voting for your favorite conferences
will begin in a few days!
(I hope to have all the conferences added by then!)

(1) for Catholics

(2) for Religious Educators

(3) for Bookstore Owners

(4) for homeschoolers
*the GHC conferences aren’t Catholic

(5) Conference Wishlist

Links of Light Bulbs is brought to you by EquippingCatholicFamilies.com, a division of Arma Dei.

Cool Stuff about Catholic Conferences

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(1) Cool Catholic Stuff!
Over the years we have collected
many treasures at Catholic Conferences. 
It’s so wonderful to see what cool Catholic stuff is out there! 

(2) Familiar Faces (and voices!)
It was so nice to see Lisa Hendey again
(and hear her familiar voice from Catholic Moments!)
and to flip through her new book
A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms
(3) New Friends!
We met lots of DREs and teachers and principals and signed up many new friends to our mailing list…and even a couple for our school fundraising program! 
We hope they drop by soon to EquippingCatholicFamilies.com!
Please subscribe to EquippingCatholicFamilies, say hello in the comments…or “like” us on facebook!
We will announce our next product winners shortly!
(4) Great Talks!
OK…we heard they were very good…
but unfortunately we could not attend them
because we were busy at the Arma Dei booth.
(5) Cool Places to see!

Anyone recognize the city that hosted our conference last weekend?
We walked by this herd each day,
on our way to the convention center!
(6) Celebrating the last conference of our 2011 season!

This was the view from our room at Niagara Falls, on the way home! 
Thanks, Mom and Uncle Steve for the babysitting!

Links of LightBulbs (3)

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All Saints Party Links!

Please refer me to your own favorite All Saints post in the comments or join the Cele-LINKY with the SAINTS (1)

(1) Cele-LINKY with the SAINTS from Equipping Catholic Families
(2) All Saints Day Games and Party from Faith and Family Connections
(3)  All Saints Day Resources: Games and Printables from That Resource Site
(4) All Saints Printables from Catholic Icing
(5) All Saints Costumes for Boys from Catholic Icing
(6) All Saints Costumes for Girls from Catholic Icing
(7) All Saints Costumes from Catholic Missionary Family
(8) All Saints Day Party Games from Catholic Icing
(9) All Saints Costumes and Games from Faith & Family (there’s even a plug for my book here…but the email address reflects the article is from 2008!)
(10) All Saints Day Party from Paper Dali
(11) All Saints Party Games from Memories of a Catholic Wife and Mother
(12) Saint Parade from Raising Little Saints
(13) All Saints Party Decorations by Under Her Starry Mantle
(14) All Saints Party Food from Catholic Icing
(15) All Saints Costumes from Family at the Foot of the Cross
(16) All Saints Bingo Game from Shower of Roses (30 different bingo card printable!)

This list of Links of Light Bulbs is brought to you by EquippingCatholicFamilies.com,
the blogging division of Arma Dei.

as scary as it gets in our house: our own friendly Ghostbuster!

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It was fun making the backpack…with extra lids, orphaned baby dishes, random bottle spouts, flapped lids, baby bottle collars and $1 store dish towel holders on a spray-painted cardboard box.  The hose is a couple of white-duct-tape wrapped paper rolls. 
The latch for the hose is a the leftover duct tape roll.
The utility belt was a prized custom-made gift a few years ago and the flashlights and goggles were neat ‘finds’ around the house.

The little viles are those little water containers for the ends of cut flowers.  I knew I’d figure out another use for them someday.
The classic ghostbuster logo on the T-shirt and the backpack were found online and copied and colored with my trusty sharpie markers.

Homemade Armor

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Joseph is a knight for halloween…again.

We were able to re-use some of the pieces of armor…and modify others.  Joseph no longer wanted a visor, but he wanted the back of his head protected better!

We made new shoulder pieces to attach to the new breastplate.  The new breastplate fits better and laces together at the sides with twine. 

To get a better shape, we “scored” the cardboard to make a clean bend (meaning: we cut a straight line with the utility knife, careful not to cut all the way through the cardboard, but rather only through the paper on one side of the corrugation).

The leg pieces are also cut to fit the length, “scored” carefully for clean bends and tightened with elastic ribbon so that they slide on and off.

Neat holes are made with a metal shish kabab skewer..and widened with something wider (with a point).  A pencil might work for this, although the metal potato skewer did a nice job.
 I’m not sure if we’re going to have to spray paint the new armor…I kind of like the contrast as it is!
That’s a smug knight!