More Graphic Design Work for St. Mark's Lutheran Church

I've been doing more design work for my church, St. Mark's. We wanted to have more eye-catching, modern, and cohesive graphics to use in the newsletter. The first is for our Bible Study and the second is for our community-building and education activities, which we call Growing Together. 

I like the way they look separately, but I especially like them together. This is what we had before. They were done by different people, years apart. 

We have a 3-part mission statement at St. Mark's. Our mission is to: 

• Nurture Discipleship
• Communicate the Gospel
• Serve the Community

Each year, we focus on one of the three. In 2026, or focus is on Serve the Community. Pastor Karen asked me to make a graphic for that back in late December. I didn't blog about it at the time, so I'll share it now. 

I love doing design projects like these. I am especially glad to be able to use my time and talents to benefit my church. 

Christmas 2025

It's out of character, but I took very few pictures last Christmas. I'm not sure why, but I didn't insist on a family picture in front of the tree. I didn't take pictures while we opened gifts. I didn't take pictures at my in-laws' house. I did take a picture of Trevor in front of the tree and Trevor giving treats to the bunnies. I paired those with a photo of me reading during the Christmas Eve church service to make this layout. 

Christmas 2025 (affiliate link)

I actually combined two different pictures of Trevor feeding the bunnies since they weren't close enough together to both appear in the frame of either photo. I fussy-cut Tulip and Trevor's hand that was feeding her and layered them on top of the photo with Brayden in it.

It's not my favorite layout - far from it - but I'm glad to have it in the album. 

Puzzle Piece Crafts

There are some people who don't mind if a puzzle is missing pieces (Karen Puzzles famously doesn't care), but it bothers me. If I open a brand new puzzle and there are pieces missing, I contact the manufacturer for a replacement. If I get a used puzzle with missing pieces, the remaining pieces become a craft supply. There are a lot of fun things you can make with puzzle pieces. Here are 7 of my favorite ideas.  

Puzzle Piece Crafts for Kids

Puzzle Piece Monarch : Create a beautiful monarch butterfly from a puzzle piece! You can use the same idea for any species of butterfly.

Puzzle Piece Alien: Start with puzzle pieces, paint, googly eyes, and wires, then let your imagination go wild as you imagine what aliens look like!

Twisteezwire Girl with Flowers: You can make all sorts of cool sculptures using Twisteezwire and puzzle pieces. My girl is holding flowers, but she could just as easily be holding anything else!

Puzzle Piece Ladybug, Crab, Bug, and Spider: Fashion the cutest ladybug ever out of a puzzle piece, beads, and wire. This link has instructions for a crab, bug, and spider as well. 

Puzzle Piece Flower Bouquet: I love this cheery bouquet of flowers, made from puzzle pieces, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, and pom poms. It's so pretty!

Puzzle Piece Reindeer Ornament: My son and I made these ornaments when he was 6. They're still one of my favorites. They look so cute on the Christmas tree each year!

Puzzle Piece Minions: When I made my puzzle piece minions, I experimented to see if I could make them from a bunch of different piece shapes. Some work better than others, but I think they're especially fun all together like this. 

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Click here to find a few more puzzle piece crafts I've made, as well as all of my other puzzle content. Enjoy!

Stuffed Cross Ornament

Our quilt group has been receiving a lot of fabric donations recently, which we appreciate so much. As we go through the donated fabrics, we sort by color, and occasionally by theme. We also pull out any fabrics that cannot be used on LWR quilts. This includes any prints with religious, patriotic, or military symbols, language, or messages. 

We can't use this fabric for our quilts, so our leader suggested I come up with a craft using it that congregational members could potentially do after church one Sunday. The four different crosses read love, faith, peace, and joy. Each is about 5" tall. 

My first idea was to make ornaments. I cut out two of the yellow joy crosses, put them with the right sides together, then sewed around the edges, leaving the top open. I turned the fabric inside out, stuffed it with Polyfil, added a loop of gold cord, and then used craft glue to close the opening (affiliate links). 

It came out fine, but it's not going to be a great option for the congregation members who usually come to our craft sessions. I have another idea for a project using this fabric that might be a bit easier and less fiddly for the very young and very old who attend. Stay tuned. 

Painted Popcorn Craft

Indiana is the largest popcorn producer in the United States. Several major brands, including Orville Redenbacher's, originated in Indiana. So it's no surprise that Indiana named popcorn as its official state snack. Illinois is also a major popcorn producer that has named popcorn as its official state snack. I love popcorn and thought it would be fun to design a popcorn craft focused on the 4th graders in Indiana and Illinois studying their state symbols rather than the preschoolers who typically make popcorn crafts. Affiliate links below. 

Painted Popcorn Craft

Materials: 

• cardstock (white and red)
• microtip scissors
• 1" circle punch
• acrylic paint (yellow and white)
• 0.4" paint pouncer
• craft glue
• Flair pen (red)
• colored pencil (brown)

Steps: 

Cut a rectangle from white cardstock, approximately 3" x 4". Cut a square that is about 3.5" then cut a wiggly edge on all sides. The easiest way to do this is to keep the scissors still and move the paper back and forth. Punch a white circle. Cut four strips of red cardstock, each about 3/8" thick and longer than 4". 

Protect your work surface, then dip the paint pouncer in yellow paint. Pounce it randomly on the wiggly cardstock. 

Without cleaning the pouncer or letting the paint dry, dip the pouncer in white paint and continue pouncing randomly until the cardstock is covered. Be sure not to cover up all of the yellow. 

While the paint is drying, glue the red stripes to the white rectangle to make the popcorn box. If you were to glue the popcorn to the box right now, it would look like this. 

Center the words POP and CORN on the punched circle using the red Flair pen. Then color around the outside edge of the circle. Glue it to the popcorn box. 

Use a brown colored pencil to lightly outline some of the popcorn kernels, following the lines created by pouncing. Add little brown triangles between some of the pieces to show where there would be shadows between kernels. Add a few small curves here and there to mimic popcorn hulls. Then use the scissors to refine the shape of the popcorn. Follow the colors, thinking about how popcorn would actually sit. When you are happy with it, glue it to the top of the popcorn box. 

I really enjoyed this project. Paint pouncing is FUN! After making it, you'd better believe that I ate some popcorn!