Embark in the Service of God Scripture Bags

Use the LDS Youth theme #Embark in the Service of God to teach your Young Women about their talents and abilities.  Let the girls make easy and fun scripture bags that will remind them every day to serve God and others with their talents.

With my Young Women Beehive's this month, we worked on another Personal Progress activity for our weeknight youth night.  This activity was for Personal Progress Knowledge experience #2.

The value experience is designed to help the girls "list talents 'they' have and others they would like to develop...  They need to "earn a new skill or talent that will help..care for 'their" future family or home."

The girls decided they wanted to learn to make and decorate everyday items cheaply as their talent.  As a frugal mom and wife, this is a great talent for the girls to learn.  Not every one has thousands of dollars to decorate their home or wardrobe, so learning to do it with cheap items around you, is a wonderful talent to have.

So we decided to go with the Youth theme of  "Embark in the Service of God" and make scripture bags.

This should help the girls to be able to pass off Knowledge experience #2 and keep themselves organized so they remember to bring their personal progress books, their personal progress doodle journals, and their scriptures to church each week.

When we decided to make these bags, I knew exactly the type of picture that I wanted for the front.  I knew I wanted to go with the youth theme of #Embark, but I looked everywhere for a line art picture of the boat with the different themes on the sails.

I couldn't find it any where, UNTIL I stumbled upon Nikki at Melonheadz LDS Illustrations.

She had the perfect Embark boat logo, and she even had it in black and white so the girls could color it!  Talk about PERFECT!!!

I downloaded the picture and printed it out using Avery T-shirt Transfers for Inkjet Printers, *

By printing them horizontally, I got two boats per page.  I even printed a few with my regular girls' names and a few blank in case we had visitors.  (Don't forget to print them in reverse so they will iron on correctly!)

I had a problem with black flecks appearing on the farther boat.  I don't know if it was because I used the Inkjet transfer and I have a Laser printer or what it was.  I didn't end up being a problem because the girls just cut around the flecks, but just know that might be a problem for you too.

After the boats were printed, we ironed them onto Loew Cornell Tote Bags * that I purchased from Amazon.

We then used Sargent Art Bright Fabric Markers * to color the Embark boats and the emblems on the sails.  I found the colors weren't as bright on my bag as I was hoping they would be, but the girls just kept coloring the design and their bag colors were prettier.

While the girls were working on their bags, we had a "mini lesson" on talents.  We talked about the Parable of the Talents" and how it related to each of them.  We talked about what some of the talents they had were, and how they needed to use the talents that they were given and not be shy or afraid to use them.

They were each challenged to go home and draw what we had talked about in their YW Doodle Journals.