Hobby of Gift-Making

I'm not getting back onto talking about the rest of the biggest trip yet, because there is one thing that you would love to see and hear about. I have a hobby that might sound amazing to all of you. I like to make present boxes out of shoe boxes to give to some people on special occasions, like Christmas and birthdays.

I worked on this hobby so much, if I have gifts that would fit in them. It's like one of the hobbies I love to do, besides Just Dance, putting up Christmas lights, working on the merit badges (which that's been accomplished already), etc. It gives me lots of good ideas on how I can create such art on each one.

Owl City pattern

This is how I start making on them. Every while, when my parents come home from Kohl's, with a bunch of stuff they bought, they give each of some of us a pair of clothes, and different pairs of shoes. After taking the shoes out of a shoe box, I ask my Mom, if I can start borrowing shoe boxes instead of throwing them away, and she said I can. Shoe boxes are just too wonderful to be thrown away that they can be used for something else. 

Taylor Swift pattern

I've been collecting a lot of shoe boxes so I can decorate them into boxes that look a lot like giving gifts. It's just too wonderful to just tear off wrapping paper from a surprised item you receive and just throw the wrapping paper away. So I just find lots of different colors of paper and buy rolls of wrapping paper, and then create some patterns to use as home-made wrapping paper (which my parents got mad at me for using a lot of ink on the printer).

One Direction pattern

With patterns that I printed out, I made four patterns of logos from my favorite famous bands and music artists, as you can see in the pictures, as you can see in the pictures of what kind of patterns they are.

Justin Bieber pattern

Star paper

Then I find lots of different colors of paper to create a lot of ways that I can imagine on my mind. I usually try to make sure that they aren't crinkled or bubbled up to make it look back. All I do to make them look exactly like gift boxes is folding it up like wrapping a gift. Then if I could, I cut little strips of different color paper and make it look like it's ribbon.

Red and Green creation

Purple and Orange creation

Rainbow creation

And then with wrapping paper, I just do it the same way as I did on the rest, but I don't make strips of paper to make ribbon on wrapping paper, because the patterns on them look to wonderful to be covered with ribbon. So I leave them just like that.




Then, after I'm done making the boxes, I open them to make sure they work just fine and, then the best part, is to add tissue paper inside each box, just like adding it to gift bags. Then right when the boxes are ready, I may do two choices, buy gifts or make gifts. I mostly bought gifts this year.

Winnie the Pooh wrapping paper

Cars wrapping paper

Noel wrapping paper

Disney Princess wrapping paper

Snowman wrapping paper

Snowflake wrapping paper

For the rest of this post, you may enjoy looking at all the different gift boxes that I made. I hope you enjoyed looking at them.

Peppermint wrapping paper

Stripe wrapping paper

Red

Yellow

Blue

Christmas Traditions

I'm sorry it took me a while to write a post, I've been busy with school to make sure that my finals have been turned in. I have a whole month off from school. I'm laying off the trip in the East for a while, because it took so long. It took us two weeks to go back east and come back home. Okay, here are the Christmas traditions.

Every year, we have lots of things we love to do. We are in charge of lots of things to put up for the season. I was in charge of putting up Christmas Displays outside our house.

We even got to have our own little Christmas trees in our bedrooms.

We also love to wrap gifts and give them to others.

We love to hang up stockings on our balcony, and cut them off and lay them on the pew on Christmas Eve,

Then we love to deck the halls like putting up garlands, especially one with lots of candy canes hanging on it.

Then we love singing Christmas tunes that are our favorites,

We love seeing lots of things outside our homes, like Festival of Lights, Temple Square, seeing our relatives, seeing Forgotten Carols, etc.

Then we love to hang a homemade garland with stocking and tree craft plastic with everybody's names on them.

And then we love to have Christmas Cousin parties, when the cousins come over to our house to celebrate it with us.

We love Christmas a lot, because it brings special memories and that we learn the greatest story about Christmas. Do you have lots of good traditions to have every year? If you do, then that's totally great.  

The Biggest Trip EVER: Palmyra, New York

Sorry it's been a while for me to write a post. I was so busy trying to get so many deadlines done for school. At least I'm almost done. Remember that I still have a lot to talk about our biggest out-of-state trip? Well, it was after Kirtland. This place we went to was Palmyra, New York. Even though we didn't get to take a tour around Manhattan, or Central Park, we still got to go to three special parts of New York. We went to see a big view of Niagara Falls. It was amazing of how it looked, but we made sure that none of the little kids could try to climb through the fence.

Then we went to another part of it. It's another church history story. We went to the Sacred Grove and the village where Joseph Smith lived in his childhood. I'm going to tell you about the story. When Joseph Smith was twelve years old, he went two different churches that he wasn't so sure of which one was right or wrong. He was at his home one night and read a verse in the Bible in James 1: 5 "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." After he read the heading, he went out in the Sacred Grove to pray to the Father in Heaven. He made sure he was alone. As he was, he knelt down to his knees and started praying. Then he felt an evil power attacking him. It was Satan trying to keep him from praying. But Joseph Smith still prayed really hard away from that evil power. Then he saw a pillar of light that was brighter than the sun. From the light, he saw two personages. One of them spoke unto him calling him by name and pointing by the other. "This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!" Right when Joseph asked them of which churches he should join. He was then answered that he should join none of them, for they were all wrong. Right when the personages left, Joesph Smith went back to his home to tell his family. Unfortunately, he told some professors about his Vision, lots of them thought he was a liar. They kept on saying that there are no such things as visions. But Joseph Smith really did see a vision. When some people don't believe him, he asked himself "Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision and who am I that I can withstand God or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it."

That is one of my favorite Church history stories. Lots of them make me happy, and some of them make me sad. We went inside the Sacred Grove, it looked exactly like the story. When we were in it, we had to be so reverent through it. Since it was called the Sacred Grove, we had to have half an hour of silence and to think about how we could pray to Heavenly Father anywhere else, just like Joseph Smith did. Before we went through the Sacred Grove, we also went through the museum about Joseph Smith's village. There were lots of good building about what Joseph and his family did. I liked the story about Joseph's older brother, Alvin. He built a nice looking house for the family so that they could live there, before his death at 26. Right when Alvin Smith died, the untrue churches thought that if he never got baptized before his death, he would be lost. But with more advice from Heavenly Father, Joseph Smith found out that Alvin is not lost. That's when he learned about Eternal Families. It means that families can be together forever, if it is followed through Heavenly Father's Plan of Redemption. For a big family like us, I'm sure that we'll be a family for eternity.

I like to share so much experience with everyone online, there is one more thing we did in Palmyra, we got to go see another show that was unlike the Nauvoo Pageant, we got to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant. It was mostly about the Book of Mormon stories that lots of people know and love. It was really a cool Pageant, because the hill was the stage. Lots of the stories looked kind of like it was all real. Right when we were done, we then went back to the hotel to get to bed before the next day of our trip. I hope you really loved the story I told you about. Next time, I'll talk about the next place we went to.

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The Biggest Out-of-State Trip EVER: Kirtland, Ohio

I'm now back to blogging. I'm going to talk about another thing that happened on the trip. After Detroit, Michigan, we then did a lot of driving to Ohio. The next stop was another Church History place called Kirtland. In Kirtland, we went to go see the Kirtland, Ohio temple, that used to be an LDS temple, but it got taken over by another religion. Right when they called the Kirtland Temple the Community of Christ, instead of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It made me a little upset that I wanted to judge that religion for taking over the Kirtland temple, but I kept being silent through it. We did tour inside the Kirtland Temple. It was the temple where Joseph Smith and all his friends taught the restoration to people who lived in Kirtland.

Remember that story that I talked about the mob who killed Joseph Smith at the Carthage Jail? Well, before that ever happened when Joseph Smith was alive, the mob was trying to find Joseph Smith so that they could kill him, hoping the whole LDS church restoration would stop. But, I'll talk more about the hard life Joseph Smith had when he tried to Preach the Gospel. And also what happened in Kirtland, this might sound a little sad, but one night when he and his wife, Emma were asleep, the mob broke into the home and captured Joseph. They brought him outside to torment him. They started ripping his clothes off and they put hot tar on his bare skin. Then they put feathers on the hot tar that was put on him. After the mob left him with all the hot tar and feathers on him, Emma brought him back inside and started washing all the feathers and tar off. When I heard of that part of the story, I thought that was totally sad. I didn't like the way that the mob would do something like that. Right when we started the trip back East, I was hoping we wouldn't run into any people who would cause any harm on us, but it never did. That's because we've been having faith and praying to Heavenly Father for safety while we traveled. He does answer prayers every time you pray to him.

Anyway, at the Kirtland Temple, there is one true thing that happened there with Joseph Smith and all of the other saints. They say a light outside the window that showed the spirit of Heavenly Father being at the first LDS temple. After we toured the inside of the temple, we then started to take a tour of the cemetery, right next to it. There was a whole bunch of people who died in Kirtland. What I was hoping to see was the grave of Joseph's older brother, Alvin. But there never was, because Alvin Smith died at a different place where I'm about to talk about next time.

After touring the cemetery, we then went to the visitor's center to take a tour of the town of Kirtland. It was named after Newel K. Whitney. He owned his home a store and an ashery. They were a strong family to do a lot of that work to pump water with a watermill. It was a lot of fun to tour the church history in Kirtland. After we were done touring, we drove across Ohio to keep going back East to do the rest of the trip. On the way, we stopped at a Target and a Red Robin in Cleavland. Ohio was fun. Next time, I'll talk more about the rest of the trip. I hope you enjoyed this post about another story of Church History.

The Biggest Out-of-State Trip Ever: Detroit, Michigan

That other post is off. I'm sorry, but my mom told me that my Owl City paper was a bad idea to put up on my blog, because, besides followers, someone could try to steal all the hard work I did on the paper. So it's deleted. But the concert is not. Now I'm going back to talk about the rest of the trip. I'm now going to talk about Detroit, Michigan.



After touring through the rest of Nauvoo, we did a lot of driving again to get to another place. We were enjoying the drive a little. So, we stopped in Detroit Michigan and stayed at a hotel for a couple of days until it's time to travel again. In Detroit, we had some fun there. We went to a fun factory where they made some very good chocolate. It was the only chocolate factory in Detroit, but it was very good.

Even though some parts of the trip that we're aren't touring other parts for church history, we still do Teach's challenge. The challenge is to give a nice person a Book of Mormon. The nice person who was totally respectful of us and did something nice for us. It is a fun challenge.



Anyway, after the Chocolate factory, we went to tour another factory in Detroit. It was my little brother, Sport's favorite factory. It was the Ford factory. It's where they make a whole bunch of vehicles for lots of people who need them. We couldn't take a lot of pictures of us at the Ford factory, but I'm sure it was totally a blast. So, after the Ford Factory, we then started driving to a little town in Detroit where they had a cupcake store that all us, kids were excited for it. It was so delicious about a lady who worked there that she was very nice. So we then found the Detroit, Michigan LDS temple. We didn't take much pictures of it but one. We were only stopping by it for a few minutes before we were having dinner at the Cracker Barrel. Detroit was totally a fun trip, but I still have lots of places to talk about of wherever we traveled.
There is one more thing that I like to talk about our trip in Michigan. We found the Michigan Lake and we started to wade in it. This might sound silly, but we didn't have our swimsuits, so we we had to wade in the lake in our clothes. It was fun though. After we waded in the lake, we started to look through the laundry bag to find a new pair of clothes.




Detroit was really fun to see the factories and the temple there. Next time I'm going to talk about our trip to Kirtland, Ohio. I'm sure you will love the rest of the trip.

The Biggest Out-of-State Trip EVER: Nauvoo, Illinois

I'm now going to tell you about another place we went to on our biggest trip. We finally made it to Nauvoo to do a city tour their about what happened there. Nauvoo is the city that had the saints keep on having the Restoration. Joseph Smith the LDS Prophet was the first one. He had been the LDS prophet in the 19th century. Joseph Smith was a really great prophet in that time. I tell you more about it in later posts about him being a great LDS Prophet.

Anyway, we went through all over Nauvoo, that we toured through some old-fashioned buildings, even when they have been restored to make it more like a museum. We got to see inside the Visitor's Center a lot of portraits and statues about Nauvoo. We got to see a musical that was played by a lot of missionaries. The musical was totally hilarious and they had some really cool songs playing. Before any of that, my Dad, my sisters, Teach Princess, Prima Donna, and I got to do something special for us. The Nauvoo temple was an open house that we were allowed to do Baptisms for the Dead. The Nauvoo Temple's Baptismal Font was way bit different than the other ones at other temples back West. It was fun to do Baptisms for the Dead at the Nauvoo Temple.

We had some time to go to Carthage before doing the rest of the touring in Nauvoo before going to another place the next day.

Now I'm going to tell you one thing that happened to Joseph Smith in Carthage. In Carthage, Joseph Smith was taken to a Carthage Jail for trying to preach the Gospel to almost a lot of people. That sounds kind of wrong, but Joseph Smith had no choice. He couldn't deny all of the preaching just to get out of Carthage. At the Carthage Jail, a mob went into it and they were trying to break through the room of where Joseph Smith, his brother, Hyrum, and other Saints that were with him. Joseph Smith and Hyrum had been killed at the Carthage Jail. The mob thought that killing Joseph Smith would make the LDS church stop. Unfortunately, the LDS church never stopped. It had been continued on and on for eternity. Right when we were inside the Carthage Jail, since it is a museum jail, it almost made me cry to hear about the martyr of Joseph Smith. I hope that you understand all about the history of Joseph Smith right when I'm telling you about it.

Nauvoo Temple

Right at nighttime, after we toured through a lot of buildings to learn about what the Pioneers did in Nauvoo, we got to go see some special Nauvoo pageant, even though it was only a dress rehearsal. There weren't any mistakes that they did. They all did a very good job. Right when the Pageant was over, we went to take a family photo in Nauvoo Temple Square at nighttime. We were trying to make sure that the whole family would be able to be in the picture. My dad and Teach were trying to make better pictures to makes sure that everyone is in the picture by Photoshopping it. Right when we were finished taking pictures of us around Nauvoo Temple Square, we packed in our van and drove back to our hotel to get some sleep before doing another long drive to another place back east. Next time, I'll tell you about another place we went to.