Creative K Kids

*Cooking * Crafting * Contemplation * Chaos *




The Ultimate Pinterest Party, Week 218

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Go HERE for more disclaimers.

By 4 Comments

Here’s what’s new on Creative K Kids:

 Thank you for participating in The Ultimate Pinterest Party!

We continue to work on making this party effective for you without being majorly time-consuming for us hosts. Last week, two people emailed me and said that the pins that they linked up were half-way down the Pinterest board; therefore, they were very hard to find. I would have never known this if they had not let me know. For both Ali and me, they still appeared at the top of the board.

Janet from Try It, Like It suggested that we make a new section for each party. It will be a little more time consuming, but we will try to do that. I will try to link to the correct section for each week’s party, but you can also find the section by going to The Ultimate Pinterest Party board. This week’s section will say, “Week 218, The Ultimate Pinterest Party.” Above the Pins, you will see the sections. Right now, there are no pins in that section. I will have to add them all after we pin them to the board. I will try to do this around 8 – 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. There may be exceptions if I have a family activity at that time. Hopefully, this will help you find the right pins to pin from weekly. Thank you for working with us as try to find the easiest way to do this party. If you have any other tips, please let us know!

Please share this party with your blogger friends!!

If you would like to receive an email reminding you to link up, you can sign up HERE.

Link up 2 pins to The Ultimate Pinterest Party from Friday at 8 am ET - Saturday 8 am ET

HERE WERE THE FAVORITE PINS FROM LAST WEEK’S PARTY:

Favorite pins from The Ultimate Pinterest Party, Week 217

MY FEATURED PINS FROM LAST WEEK’S PARTY:

Featured pins from The Ultimate Pinterest Party, Week 217

Here are the MAIN RULES:

  • Rule #1:  Link up only 2 PINS (not blog posts. Pins that are duplicates from a previous week will not be repinned.)
  • Rule #2:  Do NOT re-pin from the linky below.
  • Rule #3:  You must commit to re-pinning from WEEK 218, THE ULTIMATE PINTEREST PARTY on SATURDAY or SUNDAY. (Re-pin from the pins that say “The Ultimate Party, Week 218 pins.”)
  • Rule #4: Please only link up your own original pins that contain your images to this party.  Do not link up pictures of other bloggers that you may have included in a round-up.  Your collage of pictures for a round-up would be fine.
  • Rule #5: Please do not link up sale posts from your blog or sale posts that go to Etsy or Ebay –only pins that go to actual blog posts on your blog. Thank you.

Details to Observe:

  • Before you link up the pin, click on the pin and make sure it takes you to your post, not your home page.
  • Linking up to this party gives the hosts permission to use a picture and a link to your post if they feature your post on their blogs or social media.
  • Creative K Kids is not responsible for stolen images or the mis-use by others who have found your image through CreativeKKids.com.

Thanks for making this party such a success!!

PLEASE SHARE!    You can share on all the social medias (facebook, google+, etc.) but  here is a Twitter button to make it easy!

NOW LET’S GET TO OUR PARTY!

  • Follow your hosts on Pinterest.  (Click “Follow All” and then go back and unfollow individual boards if you don’t want to see some of our pins):

Tammy from Creative K Kids — Click HERE to follow on Pinterest.

host of The Ultimate Pinterest Party

Ali from Home Crafts by Ali — Click HERE to follow on Pinterest.

host -- Ali from Home Crafts by Ali

  • We will have all the pins pinned by 8 am Eastern time Saturday morning.
  • Please re-pin sometime on Saturday or Sunday.  If you know that you do not have the time to re-pin pins, then DO NOT LINK UP!
  • I can decide to not pin a pin if it goes against my beliefs or against the rules of this party.
  • Please grab the button to help bring awareness to this party.  Put on your party page, sidebar, or post!
Creative K KIds

PLEASE LINK UP ONLY 2 PINS! (THAT ARE NON-ALCOHOLIC!)

I had to edit the linky, so I am trying the picture linky again. For a while, inlinkz was not working well with Pinterest links, but we are going to try picture links again and see how it goes.

Please sign up HERE to receive emails about the party being open on Friday morning! An email will also be sent on Saturday morning to remind you to repin a few links!


Thoughtful Thursdays: Praying for our Children’s Salvation

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Go HERE for more disclaimers.

By 2 Comments

Last week, I mentioned how I wanted to pray for my children more. I talked about how I wanted them to be filled with the joy of the Lord; but as I looked at verses about the joy of the Lord, it was interesting to see that joy came as a by-product of a right relationship with God.

We saw that in John 15 where it talked about abiding in Jesus. I love verse 5: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” Verse 11 ends the passage by saying, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”

Continuing with the idea of bearing much fruit, we looked at Galatians 5:22 where one of the fruit of the Spirit is joy — but we won’t have that joy unless we are Spirit-controlled.

Looking at these verses showed me that I need to be praying for my children to have a walk with a God that will bear the fruit of joy in their life rather than be filled with the joy of the Lord. Joy of the Lord will be a natural by-product of  a righteous life.

So here is the first way can pray for our children to abide or to have a righteous life:

Pray that they will be genuinely saved.

Praying for our children -- our biggest prayer request should be that they will be genuinely saved! The Bible gives us verses that will help us know how to pray for others' salvation.

All five of five children have prayed and asked Christ to be their Savior. Only God sees the heart and knows who has made a genuine decision of salvation. A fear I have is that my children, who have grown up in a not just a Christian home but also in a pastor’s home, will have just gone through the motions or that they will have prayed a prayer that they did not really think about. They just did it because they knew they should. As children grow into the teen years where some teens are more independent and rebellious than others, sometimes the fruit of the Spirit is not very evident; therefore the joy of the Lord is not evident either. When I see this in my own children, I am even more burdened to pray that if their conversion experience was not genuine, that they will be truly convicted of their need of a Savior.

  • Here are some verses that can aid us in praying for our children’s salvation (and anyone’s salvation):

    • Pray verses such as 2 Corinthians 7:10a that they will have “godly sorrow (which) worketh repentance to salvation.”
    • Pray that the Father will draw them to Himself. (“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:” John 6:44)
    • Pray that God will open their hearts like He opened Lydia’s heart. (Acts 16:14, “whose heart the Lord opened”)
    • Pray that the blinding influence of Satan would be removed so that they can see the glorious gospel of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:4 —  “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”)
    • Pray that they will seek after God. We can pray that they will not be happy or fulfilled until they realize they have a God-shaped hole that only God can fill. “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:” Acts 17:27)
    • Pray that other Christians would come along their path to lead them to Christ. (“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:38)
    • Pray that God’s desire for all people would be accomplished in their lives. (“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9)

  • And here are important prayers for my life as I do not want to be a stumbling block:

    • Pray that my light will shine so that my children will want to know my Savior. (“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16)
    • Pray that I will not be hypocritical in my Christian walk. (“That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;” Philippians 2:15)

Next week, I will share more prayer requests we can pray for our children and their spiritual walk.

Go HERE to read last week’s post:

What are some things we can pray for our children? We can pray that they will have the joy of the Lord!

Come link up your thoughtful posts to Thoughtful Thursdays linky party!

The thoughtful topics for your posts could be related to but not limited to the following topics:

* homemaking * homeschooling * devotional or Biblical posts * Christian in nature * family/marriage * inspirational *

    1. Do NOT link up recipes, reviews, giveaways, diy, or crafts.
    2. Link up to three posts that have not been linked up to this linky previously!
    3. We would love it if you visited a couple other posts and left a comment or shared/pinned the post!
    4. If you wish, please follow Creative K Kids by subscribing to our newsletter or following us on social media.

If you link up, we would love if you put this button somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, or party page) or provide a text link so that others can also find these great posts.

Creative K Kids

If you would like to receive a weekly email reminder on Thursday parties about linking up to this party, please sign up HERE.


Tasty Tuesdays: How to Use the FooGallery Plugin

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Go HERE for more disclaimers.

By 3 Comments

In last week’s Tasty Tuesday’s post, I shared how I was switching my recipe landing pages to using the FooGallery Plugin.

I finished the recipe landing page this week. You can see how it looks HERE. It was really easy to use.

How I set up FooGallery Settings.

Here are the settings I used:

  • After you activate the FooGallery Plugin, click on “FooGallery” in the WordPress Toolbar.
  • At the top of the screen, click on “Add Gallery.”
  • Title your gallery so that you know what group of pictures that gallery will represent.
  • Go to the bottom and set all your gallery settings. You will change these to reflect your preferences. Here is what I changed from their default settings:
    • Under General Settings:
      • I changed the thumbnail size to 200 instead of 150 as I wanted the pictures to be bigger, but for three pictures to still fit in a row.
      • I put it to link to a custom URL as later I put in the URL for each recipe so that people can click on the picture to go to the recipe.
      • I put for the alignment to be left instead of center.
        How I set up FooGallery Settings.
    • Under Hover Effects, I clicked “Always Visible” for Caption Visibility.
    • Under Captions:
      • I set Title for “Attachment Description”.
      • I set Description for “None”.
        How I set up FooGallery Settings.
    • On the right hand side, I set Gallery Sorting for “Title – alphabetically.”
      How I set up FooGallery Settings.
  • After I had the settings, the way I wanted, I went back up to the top and clicked “Add Media.”
  • It takes you to all your media, and I searched for the picture I wanted. I have my pictures titled by recipe titles, so it was relatively easy to find the right picture.
  • Once I clicked on a picture, then I added the recipe title to the Description area. I had never used this area before, so it can now display my recipe title in this plugin the way I want it. If you had titled your recipes in the past the right title, you could have used that for captions instead of description.  I added the URL to the custom URL spot. I also changed the crop position if I did not want it to crop the picture in the middle. Sometimes, the picture of the food was on the bottom part of the picture as I had a text overlay in the top part of the picture.
    How I set up FooGallery Settings.
  • How I set up FooGallery Settings.When all the pictures are added to the gallery, the gallery can be published. The shortcode can be then copied and pasted into any page or post you want that gallery to appear.

The best thing about this plugin is that I can now easily update my recipe landing pages. Every time I add a new recipe, I can go edit the appropriate gallery, update the gallery, and then the recipe will show up on the landing page. Easy-peasy!

Of course, this could be used for other uses besides recipe landing pages. How do you make your recipe landing pages?

PLEASE LINK UP TO THREE FOOD POSTS TO THE TASTY TUESDAYS’ LINKY PARTY!

Tasty Tuesday's hosts

  • PLEASE follow the hosts of this party through one of their social media listed below. They will visit your post and pin it.  Just pick one (or more) of the options below and please follow them.

**Tammy from Creative K Kids (Blog)**
Pinterest/Facebook/Google+/Twitter/Instagram

**Audrey from That Recipe (Blog)**
Pinterest/Facebook/Google+/Twitter/Instagram 

**Lisa from Blogghetti (Blog)**
Pinterest/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram

  • Please link up to three food-related posts that have never been linked up here before.  Posts containing alcohol also will not be pinned.
  • Place this button or a link to this post somewhere on your site–either on the actual post or on your sidebar or on your party page.

Creative K Kids

  • As a thank-you for linking up, we will pin your recipe to the Tasty Tuesdays at Creative K Kids Pinterest board.  Please follow the board to see all the great food recipes!
  • Creative K Kids is not responsible for stolen images or the mis-use by others who have found your image through CreativeKKids.com.
  • By linking up, you agree to let any of the hosts or co-hosts  use your pictures and links if they decide to feature your post.   Your photo may also be used for promotion on any of their social media outlets.
  • If you would like to receive an email reminding you to link up to this party, please click HERE and add your email address to the list! I will only send you an email about linking up to this party.


The Ultimate Pinterest Party, Week 217

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Go HERE for more disclaimers.

By 4 Comments

Here’s what’s new on Creative K Kids:

 Thank you for participating in The Ultimate Pinterest Party!

Last week, I sent an email out to all the bloggers who used to get the weekly emails for this party. I do my opt-ins different for my linky parties due to GDPR regulations. I let everyone know that I was debating whether or not to keep this party going as we had so few link-ups the past couple of months. Ali works so hard weekly to get recognition for this party, and I have been tweeting and sharing more than normally, and nothing seemed to be working. After that email, we did have some more sign-ups to last week’s party.

I have a request from you. If you like this party, can you let your blogger friends know about it? We would like to keep the party going, but we have to figure out if the time is worth it. If you would like to receive an email reminding you to link up, you can sign up HERE.

Link up 2 pins to The Ultimate Pinterest Party from Friday at 8 am ET - Saturday 8 am ET

HERE WERE THE FAVORITE PINS FROM LAST WEEK’S PARTY:

Favorite pins from The Ultimate PInterest Party, Week 216

MY FEATURED PINS FROM LAST WEEK’S PARTY:

The Ultimate Pinterest Party featured pins, Week 216

Here are the MAIN RULES:

  • Rule #1:  Link up only 2 PINS (not blog posts. Pins that are duplicates from a previous week will not be repinned.)
  • Rule #2:  Do NOT re-pin from the linky below.
  • Rule #3:  You must commit to re-pinning from THE ULTIMATE PARTY BOARD on SATURDAY or SUNDAY. (Re-pin from the pins that say “The Ultimate Party, Week 217 pins.”)
  • Rule #4: Please only link up your own original pins that contain your images to this party.  Do not link up pictures of other bloggers that you may have included in a round-up.  Your collage of pictures for a round-up would be fine.
  • Rule #5: Please do not link up sale posts from your blog or sale posts that go to Etsy or Ebay –only pins that go to actual blog posts on your blog. Thank you.

Details to Observe:

  • Before you link up the pin, click on the pin and make sure it takes you to your post, not your home page.
  • Linking up to this party gives the hosts permission to use a picture and a link to your post if they feature your post on their blogs or social media.
  • Creative K Kids is not responsible for stolen images or the mis-use by others who have found your image through CreativeKKids.com.

Thanks for making this party such a success!!

PLEASE SHARE!    You can share on all the social medias (facebook, google+, etc.) but  here is a Twitter button to make it easy!

NOW LET’S GET TO OUR PARTY!

  • Follow your hosts on Pinterest.  (Click “Follow All” and then go back and unfollow individual boards if you don’t want to see some of our pins):

Tammy from Creative K Kids — Click HERE to follow on Pinterest.

host of The Ultimate Pinterest Party

Ali from Home Crafts by Ali — Click HERE to follow on Pinterest.

host -- Ali from Home Crafts by Ali

  • We will have all the pins pinned by 8 am Eastern time Saturday morning.
  • Please re-pin sometime on Saturday or Sunday.  If you know that you do not have the time to re-pin pins, then DO NOT LINK UP!
  • I can decide to not pin a pin if it goes against my beliefs or against the rules of this party.
  • Please grab the button to help bring awareness to this party.  Put on your party page, sidebar, or post!
Creative K KIds

PLEASE LINK UP ONLY 2 PINS! (THAT ARE NON-ALCOHOLIC!)

For this party, we use an “text-only” linky. Please link up your Pinterest URL below. You will not see a picture below, but we will go to your pin from the text-link and re-pin it. Thank you for participating in The Ultimate Pinterest Party with us!

Please sign up HERE to receive emails about the party being open on Friday morning! An email will also be sent on Saturday morning to remind you to repin a few links!

Thoughtful Thursdays: How to Pray for Our Children

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Go HERE for more disclaimers.

By 1 Comment

In last week’s Thoughtful Thursday’s post, I mentioned how I wanted to share some of the things I feel burdened to pray for my kids.

Every child is different and struggles with different issues. Also as they go through different stages of life, they struggle with different things. Since people who know my family read some of my posts, I will try not to get too specific so that I do not embarrass any of my children; however, one or two of my children have been struggling with being happy with the situation of life our family is in right now.

My husband is a pastor, and we moved from a large ministry and a large school to a smaller ministry and very small school. In fact, my oldest daughter homeschools by herself. This has been a hard adjustment. Then the few friends they made have moved. So they feel isolated. We have done our best to put them on sports teams or volunteer jobs or even real jobs as well as a co-op to try to find good friends, and it just has not happened yet.

Even though this is a huge struggle for teenagers, God has allowed this; and in His sovereignty, He has placed us here. He also knows what my children need. Not only are these truths real, He has said that we can be content in any situation He has placed us.

So as I get the brunt of the dissatisfaction, I have felt burdened for God to work in their hearts. I cannot change their hearts. Maybe I can handle the situation better. Maybe I could have said something differently; but only God can change their heart to be satisfied in Him and in Him alone.

When I thought, “What should I pray for them?”, I first thought I would pray for them to be joyful in God; to be filled with the joy of the Lord. I thought of verses such as:

  • for the joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)
  • A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it! Proverbs 15:23
  • These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. John 15:11
  • But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Galatians 5:22

What are some things we can pray for our children? We can pray that they will have the joy of the Lord!

As I thought of these verses, I contemplated the fact that joy was a product of righteous living.

John 15:11 above says that John wrote these things that our joy would be full. What things? Verses 1-10 talks about us abiding in Him, obeying His commandments, and bearing fruit. Joy doesn’t come unless we do these things!  Galatians 5:22 shares that joy comes as a fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit first of all must reside in us (so we must be truly saved), and then we must be living a right life so that the Spirit is not quenched. As we live a right life and abide, one of the fruit that will be demonstrated in our lives is joy.

If joy is a fruit or result of right living, I then thought that maybe I should pray that my children will live righteous lives, that they will have a desire to seek God. Next week, I will share more prayers we can pray in this regard.

As I was searching verses on joy, here were some more of the verses I found:

  • And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord: it shall rejoice in his salvation. Psalm 35:9
  • I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. Isaiah 61:10
  • Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:18 (God gives us joy when we rejoice in Him.)
  • Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. John 16:24
  • Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. Jeremiah 15:16 (We will have joy when we love and get into God’s Word.)
  • But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. Psalm 5:11
  • Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Psalm 16:11 (Joy comes when we spend time in His presence.)
  • Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. Psalm 32:11 (The upright in heart/righteous will be joyful.)
  • Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance. Psalm 89:15
  • And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Romans 5:11 (The salvation we have received from God should bring us joy.)

I found these verses of joy especially interesting as it showed that joy can be had even when trials, persecutions, and afflictions are in your life. So praying that my children experience God’s joy in the middle of their trials is Biblical and attainable!

  • How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. 2 Corinthians 8:2
  • Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; Colossians 1:11
  • And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. I Thessalonians 1:6

Come link up your thoughtful posts to Thoughtful Thursdays linky party!

Some of my favorite posts from last week’s party:

The thoughtful topics for your posts could be related to but not limited to the following topics:

* homemaking * homeschooling * devotional or Biblical posts * Christian in nature * family/marriage * inspirational *

    1. Do NOT link up recipes, reviews, giveaways, diy, or crafts.
    2. Link up to three posts that have not been linked up to this linky previously!
    3. We would love it if you visited a couple other posts and left a comment or shared/pinned the post!
    4. If you wish, please follow Creative K Kids by subscribing to our newsletter or following us on social media.

If you link up, we would love if you put this button somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, or party page) or provide a text link so that others can also find these great posts.

Creative K Kids

If you would like to receive a weekly email reminder on Thursday parties about linking up to this party, please sign up HERE.


Tasty Tuesdays: FooGallery Plugin

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Go HERE for more disclaimers.

By 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I shared that I was taking some time off from posting new recipes to do maintenance on Creative K Kids.

Two weeks ago, I switched all my recipes to a new plugin called WP Recipe Maker. It was super easy to use, so it was a painless switch.

I used to have more time to blog, and now I cannot keep up with what needs to be done. One of the biggest things that I seem to not be able to keep up with is updating the pages that I put on my menu bar for my recipes. So when I was researching the WP Recipe Maker plugin that MaAnna from BlogAid shared on one of her Tips Tuesday posts, I decided to search her blog about a picture gallery I could use for my menu pages. She mentioned that FooGallery was a good plugin to use; and since I trust her study, I decided to switch to using the plugin for my menu pages instead of making little pictures, optimizing them, and then trying to make them all line up properly. It was a suck of my time.

I spent a few hours doing about half of my recipes, and then decided I needed to take a break and go to bed, so I will update you on my progress next week. I am doing the free version of the plugin, and it is sufficient for what I want done.

My review of the pros and cons of using the FooGallery plugin.

Here are some of the positives to using this plugin that I am loving:

  • The biggest time-saver will be that it will be easy to add new recipes to the appropriate gallery, and so I can keep my menu pages current. I would sometimes go months before I would update my menu pages.
  • I have my main menu (Favorite Recipes), and then I have pages for each category. Once I put the FooGallery html code on the main page as well as the sub pages, both pages will be updated at once when I update the gallery.
  • I don’t have to mess with the pictures lining up anymore. You can go HERE, and see how the FooGallery is being utilized until Main Recipes is reached. Then the format gets wonky.
  • It was easy to organize my photos even more than I had in the past. Since my desserts category had the most recipes (like all good recipe bloggers should have), I divided the desserts into different categories of cookies, bars and brownies, pies, cakes, candy, and ice cream and popsicles recipes.
  • I don’t have to make the little images for my menu pages, which will save me time!
  • I can delete all the images I have already done to save some resource room. They were small pictures that had been compressed, but hopefully deleting them will still help.
  • I can customize how I want to display the pictures even with the free version of the plugin. Next week, I will share what features I used of the free FooGallery plugin!

So what are the negatives of using the FooGallery Plugin?

  • If I wanted an exact photo that had no words or a certain part of a picture for a recipe to be used, I might have to spend time to upload a picture that would work. I did not take the time to do that now, and I will take using this plugin into consideration when I post new recipes and edit pictures for those posts.
  • If I ever update old pictures for old posts and want to delete those old pictures, I will have to remember to add a new picture to the gallery for the menu.
  • I am hoping that they will continue to update the plugin and that it will play nice with Gutenberg — if I ever switch to that in the future — as I don’t want to have to do this again for a long time. Using this plugin could be a major negative if I have to switch in the future. No plugin will be guaranteed to be great forever or to always play nicely with what happens in the future with our themes.

For me, the positives outweighed the negatives, and sometimes a person just has to take a chance and do what seems to be best. What do you use for your recipe pages?

PLEASE LINK UP TO THREE FOOD POSTS TO THE TASTY TUESDAYS’ LINKY PARTY!

Tasty Tuesday's hosts

  • PLEASE follow the hosts of this party through one of their social media listed below. They will visit your post and pin it.  Just pick one (or more) of the options below and please follow them.

**Tammy from Creative K Kids (Blog)**
Pinterest/Facebook/Google+/Twitter/Instagram

**Audrey from That Recipe (Blog)**
Pinterest/Facebook/Google+/Twitter/Instagram 

**Lisa from Blogghetti (Blog)**
Pinterest/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram

  • Please link up to three food-related posts that have never been linked up here before.  Posts containing alcohol also will not be pinned.
  • Place this button or a link to this post somewhere on your site–either on the actual post or on your sidebar or on your party page.

Creative K Kids

  • As a thank-you for linking up, we will pin your recipe to the Tasty Tuesdays at Creative K Kids Pinterest board.  Please follow the board to see all the great food recipes!
  • Creative K Kids is not responsible for stolen images or the mis-use by others who have found your image through CreativeKKids.com.
  • By linking up, you agree to let any of the hosts or co-hosts  use your pictures and links if they decide to feature your post.   Your photo may also be used for promotion on any of their social media outlets.
  • If you would like to receive an email reminding you to link up to this party, please click HERE and add your email address to the list! I will only send you an email about linking up to this party.


The Ultimate Pinterest Party, Week 216

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Go HERE for more disclaimers.

By 4 Comments

Here’s what’s new on Creative K Kids:

 Thank you for participating in The Ultimate Pinterest Party!

Link up 2 pins to The Ultimate Pinterest Party from Friday at 8 am ET - Saturday 8 am ET

HERE WAS THE FAVORITE PIN FROM LAST WEEK’S PARTY:

The Ultimate Pinterest Party Favorite Pin from Week 215

9 Best Budget Planners from The Big Money Saver

MY FEATURED PINS FROM LAST WEEK’S PARTY:

Featured pins from The Ultimate Pinterest Party, Week 215

Here are the MAIN RULES:

  • Rule #1:  Link up only 2 PINS (not blog posts. Pins that are duplicates from a previous week will not be repinned.)
  • Rule #2:  Do NOT re-pin from the linky below.
  • Rule #3:  You must commit to re-pinning from THE ULTIMATE PARTY BOARD on SATURDAY or SUNDAY. (Re-pin from the pins that say “The Ultimate Party, Week 216 pins.”)
  • Rule #4: Please only link up your own original pins that contain your images to this party.  Do not link up pictures of other bloggers that you may have included in a round-up.  Your collage of pictures for a round-up would be fine.
  • Rule #5: Please do not link up sale posts from your blog or sale posts that go to Etsy or Ebay –only pins that go to actual blog posts on your blog. Thank you.

Details to Observe:

  • Before you link up the pin, click on the pin and make sure it takes you to your post, not your home page.
  • Linking up to this party gives the hosts permission to use a picture and a link to your post if they feature your post on their blogs or social media.
  • Creative K Kids is not responsible for stolen images or the mis-use by others who have found your image through CreativeKKids.com.

Thanks for making this party such a success!!

PLEASE SHARE!    You can share on all the social medias (facebook, google+, etc.) but  here is a Twitter button to make it easy!

NOW LET’S GET TO OUR PARTY!

  • Follow your hosts on Pinterest.  (Click “Follow All” and then go back and unfollow individual boards if you don’t want to see some of our pins):

Tammy from Creative K Kids — Click HERE to follow on Pinterest.

host of The Ultimate Pinterest Party

Ali from Home Crafts by Ali — Click HERE to follow on Pinterest.

host -- Ali from Home Crafts by Ali

  • We will have all the pins pinned by 8 am Eastern time Saturday morning.
  • Please re-pin sometime on Saturday or Sunday.  If you know that you do not have the time to re-pin pins, then DO NOT LINK UP!
  • I can decide to not pin a pin if it goes against my beliefs or against the rules of this party.
  • Please grab the button to help bring awareness to this party.  Put on your party page, sidebar, or post!
Creative K KIds

PLEASE LINK UP ONLY 2 PINS! (THAT ARE NON-ALCOHOLIC!)

For this party, we use an “text-only” linky. Please link up your Pinterest URL below. You will not see a picture below, but we will go to your pin from the text-link and re-pin it. Thank you for participating in The Ultimate Pinterest Party with us!

Please sign up HERE to receive emails about the party being open on Friday morning! An email will also be sent on Saturday morning to remind you to repin a few links!

Thoughtful Thursdays: Being Grateful

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Go HERE for more disclaimers.

By 1 Comment

Installing thankfulness in our children’s lives is a job that is never done.

Gratefulness -- an important character trait to teach to our children.

I have done many posts over the years about what we are doing to try to raise grateful children. Yet my children, like most American children, have a very comfortable life that they take for granted. They can find many things to complain about on a day to day basis.

Going back to school for our family can be a trying time. It is great to have all of the kids back to a routine and busy again. However, it seems like there is more complaining — because school is work! This week has not been an easy week, and I have been reminded once again of how I need to go to God in prayer for the souls of my children. I want to share in the upcoming weeks some prayer requests I am praying for my children as well as some Scripture I can claim as I pray for different needs I see in my family. Chances are that if one of my five kids are struggling with a certain problem, your kids might be struggling with the same thing.

Parenting can be discouraging, but we know that we have an awesome God who can answer prayer!

If you would like free resources to help your children become more thankful, I received some emails from Compassion International about some of their products that are downloads or available on the internet. One of the products is a free download of Goggles of Gratefulness. It wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be, but I think most children could relate to the story in that they want for more and are not thankful for what they have when some kids have nothing.

Gratefulness -- an important character trait to teach to our children.

Compassions International also can send you daily emails called the Family Generosity Challenge — or you can download a PDF of all of the devotionals HERE. There are many other kid devotionals available on their website!

Thanksgiving is now only 2 months away, yet we should be thankful all year round! In the past, I have also made many printables that we have used at Thanksgiving time to focus on being thankful.

13 Printables--Verses for Thanksgiving and Worksheets to go along with the verses.

13 Printables–Verses for Thanksgiving and Worksheets to go along with the verses.

Come link up your thoughtful posts to Thoughtful Thursdays linky party!

Some of my favorite posts from last week’s party:

The thoughtful topics for your posts could be related to but not limited to the following topics:

* homemaking * homeschooling * devotional or Biblical posts * Christian in nature * family/marriage * inspirational *

    1. Do NOT link up recipes, reviews, giveaways, diy, or crafts.
    2. Link up to three posts that have not been linked up to this linky previously!
    3. We would love it if you visited a couple other posts and left a comment or shared/pinned the post!
    4. If you wish, please follow Creative K Kids by subscribing to our newsletter or following us on social media.

If you link up, we would love if you put this button somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, or party page) or provide a text link so that others can also find these great posts.

Creative K Kids

If you would like to receive a weekly email reminder on Thursday parties about linking up to this party, please sign up HERE.


DIY Wooden Decor Signs Using Stencils

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Go HERE for more disclaimers.

By Leave a Comment

I was contacted by Stencil Revolution, a small company based out of Florida, if I would try out their reusable stencils. I did not have to do a review, and I received no additional compensation, but their product is great and worthy of my honest review. 

At about the same time that I was contacted by Stencil Revolution, I was talking to a lady in our church about an upcoming craft day for ladies. She said, “I have a whole bunch of pallet wood boards. Have you ever thought of doing DIY wooden decor signs?” I told her about the offer of free Mylar stencils, and our craft day idea of making wooden decor signs was now a reality. Here were the five stencils they sent me as they knew I was planning to make DIY wooden decor signs. They also have many other stencil products.Mylar stencils from Stencil Revolution

Since our craft day is only three weeks away, I decided to try to make a sign by myself without my friend’s help. I looked online for tutorials, and I went to JOANN and Michaels armed with my stencils and my list of supplies I needed.  I took my stencils so that I could make sure my wood pieces were the right size. I also bought a stencil brush, a bigger brush to paint one of my wood pieces, and the paint that I needed. I bought chalk paint to paint one of my boards and outdoor acrylic paints for the stencil lettering. I also bought a sanding block as I wanted the paint to look a little distressed.

I actually made two wooden decor signs in one afternoon. I had no newspaper, so I just used the plastic bags that the stores gave me for my purchases to put under the signs. I first painted the one board that I wanted to be a different color so that it could dry while I used a stencil on my other board. I painted it with a brown chalk paint and then two layers of black chalk paint. I wanted to sand it down some so that the brown would show through in spots as the sign was to go above a picture frame that had black and brown in it. I should have done only one layer of black paint as even after sanding for a long time, I could see hardly any brown paint. Painting the three layers took time as I had to wait for each layer to dry. After it was dry, I painted the stencil word onto the board. Here is the finished product.

DIY Wooden Decor Signs made using mylar stencils and acrylic paint.

For my second sign, I used a wooden sign that was already finished — but I still changed it some. I’ll explain how I did the wooden sign in more detail here.

  • DIY Wooden Decor Signs made using mylar stencils and acrylic paint.First, I gathered all my supplies. I had spray adhesive, Styrofoam plate, outdoor white acrylic paint, pickling wash paint, stencil brush, wooden board, and masking tape.
  • I lined up my stencil on my board to see exactly where I wanted it to be (made sure the letters would be straight), and applied spray adhesive to the back of the stencil, and stuck it to the board. I also put masking tape on each end to make sure it stayed tight to the board.
  • I put some paint on the plate, and using my stencil brush, I used a “dry-paint” technique. Basically, you only put a little bit of paint on the brush, dab it on a paper towel (or plate) to take off a lot of the paint, and then dot it up and down over the stencil. I think I still used too much paint as a little bit still leaked under the stencil. I watched this video to see how to make these signs.
  • I left my stencil on the board, let the paint dry, and did it all over again after the first layer of paint dried. I did three layers (only because I thought the white wasn’t bright enough at the beginning.)
  • After the third layer of paint, I removed my stencil and saw that a little bit of paint had leaked below the stencil — probably because I really didn’t know what I was doing. So I took my sanding block, sanded down the board a little, then applied a light blue pickling wash over the board. I let it sit for 30 seconds, and then I wiped it off. I loved the finish effect as It looks great with the blue-grey paint on the outside of my house.
  • When it was fully dry, I put a varnish over it to help protect it from the elements.

The stencils from Stencil Revolution were very easy to use; heavy-duty, and made from a quality product. I can definitely reuse the stencils over again on our church’s craft day. I need to get some Goo-Gone to take off the stickiness from the spray adhesive. I don’t know if there is a different way to apply the stencil so that it will stay tight without getting sticky.  I did wash the stencils right away to remove any paint from the stencils. They still look practically new!

If you are interested in doing your own DIY Wooden Sign Decor or other kinds of home decor, I can honestly recommend you using Stencil Revolutions’ stencils. They are a high quality product at a competitive price!

Websites where I share my giveaways:

Blog Giveaway Directory

Giveaway Monkey

DISCLAIMER
Creative K Kids

Amazon Affiliate:

Tammy Doiel (Creative K Kids) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
Google