DIY Personalized Postage

I love personalize postage. There are third party companies that work with the United States Post Service but... it's pretty pricey!

Finding the balance between having a stamp that matches the theme of the card or invitation I am sending and keeping the costs reasonable kept me up at nights. Not really it just makes a better story me look obsessive and ridiculous.

A premature purchase of 125 stamps actually helped me find a solution to the  my problem. Knowing the weight of the invitation, I bought two-ounce wedding cake stamps. The postage more than covered the weight of the invitation, however,  I didn't take into account thickness which required additional postage.
Image from United State Postal Service website
Unfortunately the Postal Service clerk informed me that they were not able take the 125 stamps back for a refund or even a credit towards the postage I would need, Twenty-two cent stamps were offered for purchase to cover the remaining postage.
Image from United State Postal Service website
Ummm no, vanity would not allow the invitation to go out with a wedding cake and a penguin stamp. I completely understand that those 170 people would open their mailbox, take out the invitation, open it and throw away the envelope without even noticing the postage. Knowing that didn't help my obsession, but I had an idea and went to the main sorting facility for my area to find out if it would work.

I discussed the idea with two super helpful and funny clerks. They thought I was nuts to worry about something so trivial but agreed that my plan was a genius solution to my non-existent  problem.
Self-serve postage kiosk
So I bought twenty-two cent postage through the self-serve kiosk. I could only buy 5 at a time so I had to make 25 separate transactions. As dumb as that seems it got the job done. The result:
Two-ounce stamp + extra postage label =  happy invitation mailing individual
The postage label the kiosk prints has blank space on the right. There is actually a dotted line with "Fold Here" instructions but I ignored that, placed my two-ounce stamp over the words and trimmed off the extra label to the right of my wedding cake two-ounce stamp. Now I had the correct postage without resorting to a hodgepodge of stamps.
Other than the blurring of the addressee, sender and "Example"
watermark this is what the invitation looked like before mailing
After completing my postage purchase, I went back to talk to my friendly and helpful clerks. I told them that during all that time in front of the kiosk I had been thinking (which made them laugh). I wondered if I could use this same technique for regular first-class postage. Could postage be purchased through the self-serve kiosk and the blank space on the right personalized with ink stamps, personalized stickers etc... The answer was YES!

FYI without trimming the blank space on the printed postage label, from the fold line to the right edge, is 2-inches. The label is 1.5-inches tall. That's a ton of room to add something cute!






Update 2018 Birthday Buck



Check out the Talk Scripture Prayer assignment stickers and the I Am a Child of God personalized stickers


I haven't changed anything from the 2013 Birthday Buck, but I am offering it on dropbox as a .png so you can easily place a photo in the birthday buck without much editing. Also for those of you with photoshop, I have included a fully editable version.

The link to dropbox for the downloads is below.



Feel free to use these for non-commercial use.

Each coupon could be personalized with the child's name, picture and birthday. The other idea would be to make a bunch of coupons with the bishop's face and name.

The birthday buck has a little less than a .25" border of white around each buck, I was able to fit these 5 up on an 8.5" x 11" using the "non-printable space as part of the white background.




This Dropbox link will take you to both versions. Enjoy!




Lunch Sack Manger



Merry Christmas 2017


Several years ago I made these for all the children in primary. It was a kit for them to put together and came with a little bag of straw. 

The idea was to add a piece of straw to the manger for each act of kindness or service a family member performed. Hopefully this would foster the Christmas spirit in the home and warm the baby Jesus in the manger.

These files can be cut by hand or machine.

Everything needed to make the paper bag manger:
Brown lunch sack 
A little 3" x 3" piece of fabric
Straw or hay in a ziploc bag
These freebie images the dropbox link should open the folder with several versions of the files (jpg, pdf, dxf).

Here are some of the freebie images in the dropbox folder

Paper lunch sack manger template

Stickers for the front of the manger

The letter we sent home with the manger

Baby Jesus

Star Stickers for the handle of the lunch sack manger

Light the World 2017 Christmas Light Stickers






So many projects so little time :) but I want to share this freebie while it is still relevant. Light the World is a great way to make sure I keep Christ in Christmas. I made Christmas light stickers for my calendar and decided to make a sheet for each primary family in our ward.




Now I am sharing the free printable and cutable (is that a word) file with you!

Follow the dropbox links below for the files. You can download the sticker page in pdf form and print and cut them out by hand or machine. I use Cut Master 3 with my Graphtec CE6000-60. Silhouette users can download as a dxf. I have also provided a jpg version for good measure.

To learn more about way you can serve follow the link to Light the World 25 Ways, 25 Days


Light the World 25 Ways, 25 Days pdf version
Light the World 25 Ways, 25 Days dxf version
Light the World 25 Ways, 25 Days jpg version

If you have any questions use the contact link at the top of this page.


Primary 2 CTR A - Lesson Schedule 2018

I am working on getting the primary lesson schedules for 2018. Along with providing the teachers with a printed copy of our lesson schedule, I wanted to email them a copy that had links directly to the lessons on lds.org. I was able to create this in excel and save it as a pdf. I will update this post with an editable excel file as I have time.

Spreadsheet to track advancement from Primary to YW/YM


Download the Microsoft Excel document HERE.

Gather the children's birth dates from your units Leader and Clerk Resources (www.lds.org - My Account and Ward - Tools and Support - Leader and Clerk Resources).

Use the information you have gathered to replace the information in the first two columns of the spreadsheet.

Plan for Faith and God and Advancements.

Live Laugh Love Happily Ever After





It's Summer and that means it's Wedding Season. I have been wanting to try my hand at making greeting cards. We have a reception to go to tonight, so this was the perfect reason to waste a whole day crafting (and doing laundry).

The inspiration for this card came from This site although their cards are no longer available for sale.

Michaels has 12"x12" scrapbook paper on sale for 20 cents a sheet. One sheet made the envelope.


Another sheet made the background panels for the front and inside of the card.



The card was designed in Silhouette Studio and Cut on Silhouette Cameo. The blue lines represent crease lines for folds. The red lines represent cut lines. A single 12" x 12" piece of cardstock makes the back of the card, the gift card flap and the fold in hand elements.



An overlay of silver mirror finish adhesive vinyl was used for the ring. The "diamond" was not cut all the way through. I set the blade to just barely etch the vinyl. Then the vinyl was cut, aligned to the cardstock ring/diamond backing.



The hands interlock when the card is closed. The bride's pinky goes behind the groom's thumb. The bride's middle and pointer fingers go in front of the groom's hand. The bride's ring finger goes through the ring.

Ignore the bride's pinky, it really goes behind the groom's thumb.


To open the card pull the hands apart, taking the ring off the brides finger.


This "unlocks" the card.




The gift card slot folds up with one strip of tape runner adhesive just above the slot.


I used the Silhouette Mint to make a stamp for the inside of the card.


I am still a little new at the Mint. If I did it again I would not "fill in" the hands but make them line art.


So the total price of the card including the envelope is 60 cents for the sheet of cardstock and two sheets of scrapbook paper. I will use the stamped image multiple times so I am not counting the cost of it. I only used a tiny fraction of the mirror finish vinyl, so I am also not counting that into the cost.


Overall I am happy with how the card turned out. It will be fun to make it with different color combinations. I will have to hurry to Michaels before the paper sale is over :)