Free Downloads - 10/11 - The Idea Room

The Innkeepers Key

**Just a reminder…if you have used my ideas and then posted them on your blogs, please link back to my blog! I would really appreciate it! Thanks!

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am in charge of planning the women’s activities for our church group. This past Tuesday was our Christmas Party. We gave each of the women one of these as a little Christmas gift.

They are brass skeleton keys meant to represent the Innkeepers Key. The innkeeper who said there was no room at the inn for Mary and Joseph in Luke 2 from the Bible. I included a quote from one of our church’s apostles, Elder Neal A. Maxwell. He said that “each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus.”

The women can then remove the key from the paper and place it onto their ring of keys so that they could see it and always remember that they are the only one who can unlock the door and let Christ into their life.

I also included a poem to go along with the key which can be used as a bookmark.

The poem is called A Prayer For December:

Dearest God,
Please never let me
Crowd my life
Full to the brim.
So like the keeper of Bethlehem’s Inn,
I find I have no room for Him.
Instead, let my heart’s door
Be ever open,
Ready to welcome
The newborn King.
Let me offer the best I have
To Him
Who gives me everything.
–author unknown

For those of you who celebrate Christmas and believe in the Bible, this idea is really universal. It would make a nice simple and inexpensive gift for a neighbor or friend.

Since I already have these all made up, in the spirit of Christmas, I have provided them for you to download and print for your own use. For the poem, click here. For the key tag, click here. I purchased my keys (which are sold in a pair) here. Please feel free to change them to suit your own needs!

December 4, 2009 · Filed under: Christmas, Christmas Gifts, Free Downloads Tagged with

It’s Never too Young to Vote…at least here anyways!

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Election Day is tomorrow, November 3, are you exercising your right to vote? You can teach your little ones about the voting process with this fun activity. Tonight, we will have a little lesson about what freedom means and the right of every citizen to have a say in the democratic process. Then we will pull out some of our own personalized ballots and have each of the kids cast their own private (unless the smaller ones need a little help reading) vote for what they would like for breakfast on Tuesday morning. We will then tally the votes and serve them a breakfast based on the results. Even though this is something really small, I hope it will teach them a little bit about their right to help make choices and understand the importance of getting out to vote.

If you think this is something you would like to use in your home, click here for Word 2007 or here for a later version of Word, to download a printable copy of this ballot.

November 2, 2009 · Filed under: Activities, Election Day, Free Downloads Tagged with

Candy Corn Kiss Cookies

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We love making regular Hershey Kisses Cookies at our house but when I saw Candy Corn Kisses at Target the other day, I knew just what to do with them…make some Candy Corn Cookies.

Halloween-Cookies

Here is our recipe:

Candy Corn Cookies

1/2 cup butter or shortening, room temperature
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly-packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar (this is optional and used to roll the balls of cookie dough in; I do not do this)
48 Hershey® Kisses® chocolate candies, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a large bowl, cream butter or shortening and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add 1/2 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beating until light and fluffy. Add egg, milk, and vanilla extract; beat well. Add flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into creamed mixture until well mixed.

Roll cookie dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls, 2 inches apart, onto ungreased cookie sheets.

candy-corn-recipes

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and immediately press a chocolate kiss into the center of each cookie (cookie will crack around edges). Remove from cookie sheet and let cookies cool on wire racks.
Yields 4 dozen cookies. For a downloadable version of the recipe click here.

Instead of using Candy Corn Kisses, you could just simply top them with a piece or two of candy corn! We also made a version of Chocolate Candy Corn Kiss Cookies using our favorite chocolate drop cookie recipe.