So here’s another post in my series for back-to-school. (If you missed my post on finding items for your homeschool when thrifting, go here.) It’s perfect because it’s about taking a virtual vacation before school starts, which I’m all for, since I’m still in summer vacation mode. It features Sarah Mackenzie of readaloudrevival.com. So if you are a homeschooling mom, please enjoy this little vacation that you can take anytime and anywhere. If you can’t be watching it with the waves rolling in on a beach, I hope you can watch it while sitting on a porch on a lazy summer evening, outside with your bare feet touching the grass, or under a shady tree, while the kiddos are happily playing or napping.
Watch below. This isn’t just a break but a time to recharge your homeschool mother batteries and get some truth to guide you in the upcoming school year. The main truth is to consider doing less in your homeschooling year to make room for more connections with your children. I love Sarah’s analogy that preparing for a new school year is like packing a bag or backpack for a trip.
I also love her “Rule of Six.” She says to focus on six foundational things in the coming school year.
She says she learned about this rule from homeschooling mom Melissa Wiley. It’s actually seven things, six things, plus prayer. So besides prayer, these are the six things that you want to get to every week in your homeschooling with your children. For her, it includes math, reading aloud, and going outside.
For me and my son, the only one left at home to homeschool, for last year, our six things besides prayer were: Morning Basket (which includes reading aloud), math, theater class, time at gym, Sword of Freedom/Hero Class, trip to the public library, and sometimes a a board game. As the year went on, I found that my old game a day rule made my backpack too heavy so I had to let the #bookandgameaday goin the fall, as well as a drawing exercise every day. That makes sense since he’s getting older and independent in his learning. He’s not into drawing and wants to focus on drumming.
She also suggests to start the school year out slowly with one thing, besides prayer, like attending co-op, and then gradually add in more things to your backpack for your homeschooling trip, like math. You know you are adding too much to your backpack or bag if you can no longer smile at your children and they aren’t smiling at you.
As she says, the curriculum doesn’t matter so much, as long as you are making these connections:
Connection to Christ
Connection to each other
Connection to ideas in books and lessons.
All we can do is offer invitations to these connections, and God takes care of the rest.
As a veteran homeschooling mom who has never used a box curriculum other than Mathusee, and LEMI projects, I totally agree! Such wise words, thank you Sarah! She also features a guest, Joy Clarkson, who says it’s so important to focus on taking care of our bodies. It’s so easy as a homeschooling mom to forget that we have a body. If you ever have a problem in your homeschooling, remember you have a body and take care of it with the right food, sleep, exercise, and time outside. That will help you deal with the problem better. More wise words, thank you Joy!
Over here you can read about how you can homeschool with just a math curriculum, like Mathusee, and a public library card.
Want more of Sarah? Read her books below.
Want more of Joy? Here’s her book that Sarah mentioned in the video.
Today at church, I got to play such a beautiful song! I am the pianist for Primary, the children’s organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The primary chorister asked a man in my ward (congregation), impromptu, to sing this new song in front of all the children, to introduce the song. She knew that the man used to be a professional opera singer and would be OK with being asked at the last minute. I hadn’t ever played the song before, and the good brother hadn’t ever sung the song before. But we made a great team! We both made mistakes but we both knew that was OK, especially since it was new to both of us. The children were absolutely mesmerized by his resonant voice and the gorgeous melody and harmony intermixed. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it as well.
Yes, the Savior is coming again! Lift up your voice! Rejoice!!!
Here’s the song below, two versions.
It’s so beautiful! I love the lyrics and the flowing, rolling tune, both by composer Lane Johnson.
Then this video below shows the lyrics.
Here are some of my favorite images from the video above.
When the Savior Comes Again…
Note: the song doesn’t say “the lamb and the lion” will feed together. The composer learned by studying the scriptures that nowhere in the scriptures does it says the lamb and the lion will lie down together, or do anything together, in the Millennium. The scriptures do, however, talk about the wolf and the lamb. See Isaiah 65:25.
Here’s a wonderful interview with the composer, Lane Johnson. The song started as a dream, decades ago, when he dreamt that he would someday write a hymn about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. In the video he tells how the song came to fruition after his dream. Then he tells a tragic yet beautiful story of how he came to have a family of 11 children.
Thank you Brother Johnson for this beautiful, inspiring song! You can get the sheet music here. It’s one of the new songs from the new collection of Hymns: for Home and Church.
Jessa Duggar Seewald dropped a video this morning announcing the gender of her newborn, Baby #6, born on July 26, 2025. Watch here to find out! I have to hand it to Jessa, she really knows how to milk this blessed event for views! The announcement of her labor, birth, gender, and then name are drawn out into four different videos. In today’s video we find out the gender, but not the name and have to wait for Part 4 to be released!
Here are a few screenshots from the video. Above, Jessa’s other children enter Jessa’s hospital room and Grandma Seewald is holding the baby. Big brother Henry asks the gender. Grandma S tells says that Mom and Dad will tell them.
Above, Grandpa Jim Bob Duggar asks the older siblings what they each think the gender is. They got to come see the new baby after going to church. In the previous video, announcing the birth, Jessa explained that it’s their tradition for her husband and her to find out the gender before birth and not tell anyone. Then they let their children come to the hospital to see the new baby and find out the gender, and then the siblings get to tell the rest of the super-sized Duggar family.
Here are all the siblings, with Aunt Josie Duggar, running to the hospital room to meet the new baby and find out the gender. I love the joy of anticipation on big sister Ivy Jane’s face. So sweet :-)!
Contrast Ivy’s face with two-year-old big brother George’s above, LOL. He is ready for a nap and only thinking about that!
Ivy’s caressing of the baby’s face is so motherly and precious!
Here’s big sister Fern holding the baby. She says they should name the baby “Rainbow Print” and then Ivy suggests “Bunny.” So funny! Ben and Jessa say that they haven’t decided the name yet. I relate. With one of my babies, actually it was also Baby #6 for me, DH and I didn’t come up with a name until six weeks had passed!
I just have to say, I called the gender!!! See my previous post here. Way back in Jessa’s video of packing her hospital bag, when she showed the baby’s clothes, I decided it was a boy. Supposedly they were gender-neutral clothes (green, beige, and brown) but I just felt by seeing the clothes she picked out that she was anticipating a boy. Then when I saw him in the birth video he definitely gave boy vibes. Now I’m guessing at the name. I actually had predicted Edward before I watched the video. Just because the Seewalds already have a Henry and a George. Edward fits with those. So does Charles but the baby has a Duggar cousin named Charles already, the son of John-David and Abbie Duggar. All of the Seewalkd boys are named after theologians: Spurgeon, Henry, and George, so far.
I think the name will be one of these five, based on what Ben says in the video:
Edward Calvin
Edward Jonathan
Owen Calvin
Jonathan Calvin
Calvin Jonathan
Congratulations Ben and Jessa!! I miss those baby-bearing days! (Today’s actually the birthday of my Baby #5, who is 21 today.) There’s nothing like giving birth to feel heaven come to earth and feel the power of God. It’s just such an amazing experience!
It’s Thrifty Thursday! Today’s Thrifty Thursday topic here on the blog, since we’re headed into back to school time, is thrifted homeschool items. Here is where two of my passions collide: going to thrift stores to find deals on things I want and need, and homeschooling. When I say “homeschooling” I’m talking about the long haul to bless generations of my family with items that support a love of learning. My adult children, if they ever read my blog, and as far as I know, only one of them does sometimes, might look at this list and say, “I don’t remember using any of these items in our homeschool.” That’s because most of these I acquired after they left, except for the Great Illustrated Classics, the Bright and Early Beginner Books, and a few board games. I didn’t really hit my thrifting groove until my youngest was 8 or 9, when we lived in AZ, and the three oldest had flown the nest. Even though my youngest is 15 now, and I don’t have littles living here on a daily basis, I keep these items for when the grandchildren visit, which does happen weekly so far. As I get more and more grandchildren I hope to use more and more of these items with them for Grandma Homeschooling Culture Time, regardless of the time of day or year, and regardless of whether or not my grandchildren are homeschooled.
Without further ado, here are my top 15 favorite items. Some of them are actually categories because I can’t limit myself to one favorite book or one favorite educational board game. 🙂 Everything shown in the photo above came from a thrift store, except for the apples of course, and I’ll talk about them all below.
Xacto Pro Electric Pencil Sharpener
I couldn’t believe my great fortune when I found the sharpener above. There’s a little story behind it. When I lived in AZ I worked for a company where I was paid to school a handful of children in my home. Part of being a teacher involved receiving a kit of brand new educational supply and resource items sent from Amazon. One of the items was an Xacto pencil sharpener. Well, that was exciting as we had had a hand-cranked pencil sharpener, and then had been gifted an electric sharpener by an uncle, but which got broken. One of my rascally children stuck a crayon into it and ruined it. So it was so fun to get a new electric sharpener replacement, but then it was a dud! It wouldn’t turn off unless it was unplugged. So every time you went to use it you had to plug it in, and you would immediately hear the blades turning, you’d put your pencil in, sharpen it, and then when you pulled out the pencil, the blades kept turning. So to turn off the noise you had to unplug it. That’s just a bit cumbersome. I know, know, First World problem. I reported the issue to the people in charge but they said they couldn’t replace it. So we lived with it for years. Imagine my delight when I found a replacement at my local Deseret Industries thrift store (DI)! I think it was $5. Definitely a Magical Thrifting Moment (MTM) where I felt my thrifting angels singing for me in the heavens above as I pulled the item off the shelf and smiled. Alas, I didn’t have a pencil with me to test it at the electrical outlet testing area provided in the store. I just prayed it would work when I got home and it did! So now we can sharpen our pencils so easily, without stopping to plug in and then unplug the pencil sharpener! Such harmonious function that didn’t exist for years in this home now does! I didn’t go into the store with the intention of finding this, it just fell into my lap. I love these serendipitous moments that involve God winking at me, as if He’s saying, “Hey I know you could use a replacement electric pencil sharpener for just a few bucks, so here you go! You’re welcome!”
2. Great Illustrated Classics
These books are fun because they present the classics of Western civilization in a more digestible form. That’s because they are abridged with simplified language and illustrations on every other page. I have found a lot of these at thrift stores through the years. You can probably find one in the next few months when you go thrifting at least weekly if you keep your eyes open. If you want to expose yourself and your children to the classics, this is a very inexpensive and easy way to go. When you are familiar with the stories you can all go back and do the unabridged versions. I view reading these instead of the unabridged versions the way podcaster Sarah Mackenzie of readaloudrevival.com says about watching the movie before reading the book. She says it’s OK to watch the movie first because it gets you familiar with the plot of the story. Then when you read the book your mind is free to catch the details and enjoy the storyline better because you know what happens.
3. Dorling Kindersley (DK) Books
I just looovve these! As a visual person who loves nonfiction and trivia, I love high quality photographs and illustrations about real things with simple explanations. I have found all these books above for $1.50 to $3 at different Deseret Industries (DIs) and one Savers through the years. Then I got the atlas below at Savers back in June, for around $3.50, which tends to have higher prices than DI. These books are just so fun and appealing with their explanatory text and beautiful photos. And the homeopathy book! It is such a nice complement to the Paola Brown homeopathy curriculum that we used a few years ago. I review the DK homeopathy book here. What a treasure!
4. Big Fat Notebooks
These are great, easy to read summaries of basic topics, at the middle school level. I have found them one at a time at different thrift stores. They are designed to look like notes in a notebook, handwritten by an 11-14 year old, with colorful diagrams. Then each chapter has questions at the end. I’m thinking this coming year we’ll go through them one at a time in our Morning Basket.
5. Chronicles of Narnia CDs
These CDs are all of the Chronicles of Narnia books by C.S. Lewis in audio format. They are fully dramatized with different voice actors along with fully orchestrated music. I found the set brand new, still in the shrink-wrap, at a Goodwill in Phoenix, AZ. For only $7! The back of the package says it retails for $59.99. We listened to these in the car driving to and from our homeschooling co-op 90 minutes each way for a whole year. So, soo good! The inside of the package is so beautiful, with the artwork of the package lined up with the artwork of the CDs, as I show in the photos below.
Isn’t it all just so gorgeous? So amazing!!! C.S. Lewis’ stepson Douglas Gresham was in charge of the whole project. He got the best and brightest talent in London to help with it. This is probably my absolute favorite thrifting treasure of all time.
Then gradually through the years I have found all the hard copy Narnia books, as shown below. My children have loved these books.
6. Bright and Early/Dr. Seuss Beginner Books
I’ve been collecting these since all the kiddos lived at home. I like to keep these especially for my grandchildren. When I give the grandsons a bath, it’s fun for the older one to get one of these off the shelf and read aloud while I’m bathing his younger brother.
7. Coloring Books and Activity Books, Especially Dover Coloring Books, Crayons, and How to Draw Books
The ones above were all $1 to $2 at thrift stores, except the Antietam to Gettysburg one. I think I got that on amazon, to add to my collection, when I was teaching LEMI’s Sword of Freedom class.
The idea is to let children color in these as I read aloud. I was never consistent with offering it to the older ones, when I had one or two. I’ve collected so many more since they left. So far my youngest two haven’t embraced the idea of coloring while listening to audiobooks or me reading aloud so I’m keeping them for the grandchildren.
I found the above case of crayons, pencils, and markers at DI a few years ago for $2. When my grandson saw it, he said, “This is the best day ever of my whole life! I love this!” Below is what it looks like closed up. This is a great reminder for me to have it more often when he comes to visit because we haven’t used it in awhile.
Then here are some how to draw books. I am almost done with my Bruce McIntyre’s Drawing Textbook, having done one drawing a day, off and on (years ago it was mostly off, but now it’s mostly on) through the years, and then I’ll advance to the book below on the left. I did the one on the right with my son for a bit and then he lost interest but I bet I can get my oldest grandson interested in it after he turns 8.
8. Card Decks of Quizzes and Conversation Starters, and Tiny Toys and Games, All for Travel, Read Aloud Time, and Dinner Time
I love finding Professor Noggins quiz card games when thrifting. All of the above were priced from 75 cents to $3. I also look for flash cards and Pomegranate brand card decks.
I’ve seen the Pomegranate decks in the BYU Museum of Art Gift Shop for the full price, around $13. At thrift stores I’ve found them for $1-$2. Everything but the After Dinner Trivia tin and the Word a Round game in the photo just below are Pomegranate brand quiz decks.
I was so happy to find a Kanoodle set for only $1 a few years ago. It’s a super fun 3-D puzzle.
I keep these card decks and some of the tiny toys and games close by in baskets next to the dining room table. Then during mealtime I pull out the cards and quiz the family or ask the questions on the conversation starter cards. The tiny toys and games are for the grandsons to play with after Sunday dinner. I keep the rest of the tiny toys and games in my game room/office to rotate through to keep interest high for the grandboys.
9. Board Games
I love board games and I love thrifting so the fact that I can find board games at thrift stores just doubles the pleasure! I’m always on the lookout for unique board games. I pass up on common boring, chance-based ones like Aggravation and Sorry! to find unique ones, especially educational ones. I use these for gameschooling. Here is a sampling of what I’ve found. (If you want to learn all about gameschooling, go here.)
Gardening Scrabble is so much better than regular Scrabble. It has cards that give you special powers, like the ability to “fertilize” your word and triple the score, or “rototill” your garden and get rid of all your tiles and get new ones. The game below is when one of my adult sons played the game with me over Christmas break. He was such a great sport to play with me when everyone else wanted to play Catan, which is not my favorite but another son’s favorite. I got it for $4! The seed packet cards with special powers fit in the pockets of this adorable gardening tools basket. Then you draw the tiles from the inside of the basket. So fun! Now I want to find Cooking Scrabble when thrifting!
A Jane Austen themed board game to test your knowledge of the stories and characters of all the Jane books! This was the thrifting treasure of the year! I got it in June for only $2.90. Another MTM for sure!
I’ve found so many other fun games while thrifting, for $1 to $6 each. Some of my favorite educational ones are Call to Adventure (storytelling), Funglish, Huggermugger, Code Names (which I got for only $1.50, brand new in the shrink wrap, story is here), Taboo (also new in shrink wrap), Periodic, Into the Forest, Spontuneous, Encore, and lots of history and geography games.
10. Little Golden Books
I find these for 75 cents to $2 at thrift stores and read them to my grandsons when they visit. They know right where they are. I keep them on a low shelf within their reach and when we do stories together they often pick from my LGB collection.
11. Picture Books of Seasons and Holidays and Other Topics for Morning Basket Time and for the Grandchildren
Above and below you see my different seasonal and holiday collections. So far I only have one book I thrifted for Valentines’ Day, Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch, which I was thrilled to find since it’s one of those I used to check out every year from the public library, and now I don’t have to. I have a bunch more for Easter and the other holidays, and just one for Halloween. I read these aloud during our Morning Basket time and to the grandchildren when they visit.
One of my books I display during June and July for Independence Day. For Morning Basket two years ago I read aloud about one signer a day. After years of checking this book out every year from the public library I found this at Savers!
Above and below are some of my picture books for Independence Day. (I just discovered this past summer that I can decorate my front room with books by using the ledges above my windows and doors!
This is the only Halloween book I have, which I found thrifting. I’m not super into Halloween and this is the only one I’ve found that approximates my feelings about the holiday.
Then shown above is my Thanksgiving collection. Two of the books were given to me by homeschooling mama friends and the rest I found at thrift stores.
The latest finds for my Christmas picture book collection. I have a lot more.
12. Baskets
I love storing books and little games and toys in baskets in our dining room/homeschool room. I didn’t have a true basket for years for “Morning Basket” time but now I do, with my bright yellow basket above which I found at DI for $3. I also found the Linnea book at DI. It’s a great book for Morning Basket to read through the whole year as it talks about little details about the four seasons and how nature changes by the season.
Then this basket below is in my front room for people to browse through when just wanting to lounge on the couch.
Both baskets above were thrifted, and all the items in the white basket above were as well.
13. Mother Culture and Education Items for My Delighted Learningof American and World Culture, Homeschooling Encouragement, As Well as to Give Direction and Enrichment of my Home Culture
I love books like those above, all from the thrift store, where I can learn more about civilization, culture and history, as well as just fun stuff. So here we have a book from Dr. Schaeffer, holiday crafts to do from Martha Stewart with those in my family who like crafts (my married daughter, grandsons, mom, and nieces) and the history of holidays and other days. I sometimes pull the books on the upper left and right when we are eating dinner and share the information. The Teacher’s Almanack is particularly fun with a list for every month of the interesting historical events that happened that month and days like National Dog Day or Pie Day. A Book That Takes its Time is a fun guide to creativity with little decorative cutouts and doodads and tiny cards. It was only $2. Then the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, below, I found at DI for only $2! It’s over an inch think and has everything any American needs to know to be considered literate and cultural!
Then I love picking up books about how and why to homeschool from other homeschoolers, like the one below. I read the book below from the public library years ago, and then saw it for $2 recently so picked it up. My review of it is here.
Speaking of culture, I also love family traditions books regarding holidays, seasons, Sundays, and everyday. So here’s my collection for that. All of these books above and below were thrifted except the Christ-centered Easter one from Joe and Janet Hales and Gathering Home by Emily Belle Freeman. (Fun fact: Janet Hales is my husband’s cousin.)
All three of these Christmas-themed books above came from either DI or Savers. They are guides to creating a magical, family-themed Christmas. Two of them are religious and one isn’t.
It’s just so important for we as moms to delight and dazzle our hearts with little things so our bucket is full and we can continue giving. Things like those in the picture above and the songbooks below are such inexpensive ways to delight and dazzle my heart.
14. Songbooks/Piano Music Books
I used to play a song from the Dr. Seuss songbook every morning as a rallying song to signal the start of our homeschooling morning. After the kiddos gathered around the piano we’d sing it together. The LDS songbook was only 50 cents at an estate sale and has a few songs new to me that I really enjoy playing. The rest I already knew and have already played a lot. Then this book below just so delights my heart every morning. I reward myself after doing my exercise routine by playing a song from it. The book has popular music from movies, operas, ballets, plays, and then famous classical songs like from Beethoven and Mozart. Some of the songs I’ve never heard before but a lot of them I have, and just didn’t know the name, like the waltz from the Copelia ballet.
15. Books About the Bibleand the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, and my other Core Books
I just love books that help me understand the scriptures, my core books, and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. My son and I finally finished reading the Redeemer book which we read during Morning Basket time.
So there you go! I challenge you to go thrifting in August and/or September to see what you can find for your homeschooling. You’ll be surprised at what you find it you go at least weekly for a month. Here’s a fun video below of a cute married couple, the Knorpps, who show what great homeschooling things you can find at a thrift store. They talk about things I didn’t write about like chalkboards, notebooks, binders, a lap desk, even metal lockers! I like Mrs. Knorpp’s suggestion of how to make a chalkboard or white board from framed art at a thrift store. Great idea!
So go thrifting for homeschooling, have fun and let me know what you find in the comments below!
I’ve been seeing a lot homeschooling vloggers talk about back to school. I’m not quite ready for that yet. I love to hang onto summer as long as I can. One thing that helps me do that is reading books that involve childhood summer adventures. I do have a series of posts planned for back-to-school, to encourage anyone out there to embrace homeschooling, to encourage homeschoolers to continue on, and tips and tricks on making it sustainable and a lot more fun. So stay tuned for those!
I shared a bunch of summer read aloud suggestions in June, over here, and today here are more, as shown in these images above and below. They come from this post from Leila Lawler, veteran homeschooling mother of 7 and grandmother of 20+. I love reading her blog! She has so much wisdom. Go over there to read her descriptions of these books. It’s interesting that she recommends Edith Nesbitt books. I’ve seen others recommend them as well. I guess E. Nesbitt’s Fabian socialism does not appear in her children’s books, and they remain wholesome fare that Christians enjoy.
Anyway, if you have never discovered the magic of reading aloud, I encourage you to discover it before you delay. It’s the easiest, cheapest, and most brain enriching and family bonding form of family entertainment out there. So go to my June post to see more of the why and how to encourage reading aloud.
One interesting thing I learned from reading Mrs. Lawler’s post is why the Penderwicks book is not the best book to read. I had it on my list over there and just deleted it. Read her explanation here to learn why. Reading that makes me realize, oh yeah, I never did finish the book but I do remember being bugged by the character Mrs. Tifton. I’ve been recommending the book even though I didn’t finish it. It’s good to know why it’s not the best book and I’m not recommending it anymore.
If you want more summer picture book and chapter book read aloud suggestions, go to my other site, here, and just ignore the Penderwicks suggestions. (The calendar shown at that site is no longer available. I plan on having a 2026 one available by Thanksgiving.)
Credit for Photos Above and Below: Jessa Duggar Seewald YouTube Channel
I just love birth stories! The emotion involved, the intensity, the relief and joy after the baby is born, it is all so real, raw and amazing! I have seven birth stories of my own and I love to hear other birth stories.
My married daughter is due the end of August. This is the first time that she lives close enough that I get to be there for the birth, watching her older children and seeing the birth if the timing works out depending on the needs of the children.
I also love families and big families. So I enjoy following the Duggars and Bates family since they each have 19 children. One of the Duggar daughters, Jessa Duggar Seewald, had Baby #6, on Saturday July 26, 2025. She hasn’t revealed the gender yet though.
You can watch Part 1 here where she shows what she did to get into labor.
Here’s Part 2 where she shows that her water broke while she’s lying on the couch at her parents’ home. Then she goes to the hospital and has the baby. She strategically doesn’t show the gender, even when the baby is being weighed. While watching, I thought, “Surely she’s going to tell us at the very end what the gender is.” But nope, at the very end we find it that we get to wait to find out. The footage at the end of the video involves her children coming to the hospital. Her voice over says that it’s her tradition for her husband and her to find out the gender during pregnancy, but not to reveal what it is. (With this last one, however, she did tell her sister Jinger on Jinger’s podcast video but then they bleeped it out, for purposes of click bait.) Her children get to find out right after the birth and then they reveal the gender to the rest of the super-size family. So now, we get to wait for Part 3 to find out.
I think it’s a boy, what do you think?
Note added a few days later: Jessa has created a video announcing the gender! Go here to see the reveal!
If you want more birth stories, read the book about birth and birth stories that I review here.
Here’s how to get great art into your home super inexpensively. This is the third time I’ve done this, and I look forward to doing more. The photo above shows the first piece of art I worked with. It’s a copy of “The Happy Family” by Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller. I found the above art years ago in a magazine and it just spoke to me. Looking at it helped me through a dark time in my family life. I’m so grateful for it. Don’t despair if you can’t afford to buy art from high-priced stores. With technology these days, almost anyone can afford to have beautiful art in the home. We are so blessed to live in such a marvelous age with the classics within reach of nearly anyone who desires them. Art speaks to the soul in a way nothing else can and inspires one to rise above the daily grind with a higher vision. We need not deprive ourselves and our families of beauty inside our home to gaze upon each day. So, here’s how to decorate your walls with beautiful classical and religious art, at a very low price.
First, gather some print magazines from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you sign up for a Church account, or already have an account, you can subscribe to the print magazines for free. (The magazines are The Friend for children ages 3-11, For the Strength of Youth for 12-18, and The Liahona for adults.) Go here to get a Church account and/or subscribe. As far as I can tell, you don’t have to be a member to get an account and subscribe, as long as you agree to the terms of service.
2. Flip through your magazines and find the piece of art in the pages that speaks to your soul, one where you just instantly feel like you have to frame and hang on your wall. In my case, it was this print above of a portrait of Jesus Christ by Greg Olsen. It’s from The Friend, the April 2025 issue, shown below. It’s the inside of the front cover. I guess you could print it from the link I just gave using your computer’s printer if you have a super high-quality printer and plenty of colored ink, if you trust your printer to do a great job.
Interestingly enough, I had found this same artwork in the form of a jigsaw puzzle when thrifting a few years ago. We did the puzzle during an April General Conference in my former home, what I affectionately call the Cottage on the Corner. I just think it’s so beautiful. I love the grayish blue of the coat of Jesus, the lavender bluish gray of the mountains in the background, and then the yellows, pinks, and blues in the sky, reflected in the water. This painting just radiates hope and calmness from Jesus all at the same time.
This particular piece is called, “Walk With Me.” You can buy it already framed over here, a 7×9 size, shown below with a mat as well, for only $20, which is a great deal! Notice that Jesus’ feet are cut off in the magazine version above but not in the framed art from Greg’s site below. Did I already mention how amazingly beautiful I think this art is? I just love, love how the artist Greg created the luminosity surrounding the Savior in the sky and water, and how His steps look so grounded. Jesus is definitely our ultimate hero to follow, and this piece shows that so gorgeously.
3. Then find a frame you want to use with the art. A few weeks ago, I went thrifting with the specific intention of finding a gray frame to go with this particular piece of art. As soon as I walked into the Orem UT Savers store and went over to the frame section, I found “the one”! A solid, wide, gray, wooden, 8×10 frame. Perfect!!! I felt the angels were definitely watching out for me and singing when I found this! They had put it in my path for sure! It was only $3! (To learn about help from angels when thrifting, go here, and scroll down to the bottom of the post if you don’t want to see all my thrifting deals and just want to read how I get help from angels.)
OK, now that you have your magazine with your picture inside picked out, and your frame selected, you are set to create your beautiful home decor.
4. Carefully remove the page you are framing from the magazine. To do so, cut the page out with scissors, or use an exacto knife against some kind of protective surface, or gently remove the staples used for the binding, and then cut the art from the adjoining page. In my example, the page was on the back of the front cover, so it was printed on heavier paper, therefore it was easier to just gently tear away. If you aren’t sure about your ability to gently tear the page, then definitely cut it or remove the staples and then cut it.
5. Put the page in the frame and see where you need to trim it to make it fit. You can see above how the top edge overlaps the inner part of the frame.
6. Carefully measure off with a ruler or guess at what you need to cut off, if you are good at what my artist mom calls “eyeballing it.” In my case, I just kept trimming off 1/8th of an inch on all four sides, after drawing a line with a pencil and a ruler to follow when cutting, until the page fit.
7. Keep checking the fit and trimming until you get it right. The above photo shows how much I had to cut off to make it fit.
8. When the page finally fits, put it in the frame, assemble the back with the padding that is usually included with the frame, and hang it on the wall. All done! Enjoy your beautiful art that cost next to nothing! Here’s how mine looks on my wall, below.
I love it! I’m not sure, however, if the above spot is the final resting place for my new framed work of art. I’m just not sure how I like the curved gold frame of the clock with the heavy gray frame of Jesus and the white trim of the doorway to the left. So, I’m moving this framed art around to see where it looks best. Or maybe I’ll move the clock. Anyway, I love decorating with creativity and frugality! Of course, I’d love to have a million dollars to decorate with as well, but for now I’ll make do with what I have. Maybe I’ll eventually advance to including mats with my framing.
Of course, you are not limited to Church magazines. It’s just easy for me to find images in those because that’s what I have. You could use any magazine full of pictures you enjoy. Or the Internet with a great printer and lots of color ink. Or find some framed art when thrifting! I haven’t done that yet but I’ve seen a few thrifty vloggers doing that. The sky’s the limit with this idea!
Next, I’m going to find some frames when thrifting for this set of illustrations of a tree branch, shown below, by Michael Dunford that appeared in the April 2025 Liahona magazine. They accompany an article by Elder Gerritt W. Gong about Jesus and the message of Easter. I’ll probably just splurge and buy a set of three new matching frames that are narrower than what I used above for Jesus. I’m just not sure what color I want those frames to be. Gray? Silver? White? Gold? Cherry wood? Hmmm….I’m thinking probably cherry. Those blossoms are either apple or cherry ones.
P.S. If you want the image of “The Happy Family” by Ferdinand Waldmuller, it was in the June 2005 Ensign magazine. (Ensign is the name of the magazine for adults before it was changed to Liahona.) You can go here to print a copy. It is just so beautiful! I love it so much, with its meaning of finding joy and peace at home by connecting with your family members.
I hope to start a new regular feature where I share every Thursday about thrifting. #thriftingthursday! Thrifting means buying things from thrift stores, like Goodwill, Savers, Salvation Army, Deseret Industries, etc. The items are usually used but sometimes you can find things brand new still in their original packaging. If you apply a broader term, it can also mean finding things elsewhere for free or cheap, like from ebay, thriftbooks.com, used library books sales, yard sales, yard giveaways, estate sales, just attracting things for free, and dumpster diving. I have never gone dumpster diving, but I’ve done all the other things.
Speaking of attracting things for free, I got this book below when I went to a cottage meeting to hear a speaker at a private home. Some guy was giving away books and I got this one below, back in May. After thinking about it, I realized I could use it as a gift for one of my sons, who has a birthday in July. He is majoring in dance and was in a ballet last March. It looked like new and still had the CD inside. He smiled when he opened the package, so yay! I gave him other stuff too.
I didn’t go thrifting at all in April, and just a teeny bit in March. I sure made up for the lack in May, June, and July. Here are the rest of the goods.
Up at the tippy top, we see some fun stuff I found at Savers. I was especially thrilled to find so many baskets, to switch out for my plastic bins that I’ve been using for toy storage, as well as a pretty dress, and the book about Jewish holidays to add to my collection of family traditions books. I gave the Eric Dowdle puzzle to my dad for Father’s Day along with a book.
The above books came from the quarterly used book sale that my local public library does. After blogging about Naomi Wolf last spring, I was delighted to find a book by her. I love all of Tom Woods’ books. I read the above one years ago, from the public library, and now I have my own copy!
OK, next, below is one of my favorite thrifting treasures ever!
It’s the Jane Game! A Jane Austen-themed board game! I played it with my sister Emily when she is town and can’t wait to have a Jane party in January with my homeschool mom friends. That’s definitely something to look forward to after Christmas is over! I also found some sparkly gold picture frames on the same trip, back in June. This was definitely a moment when I felt the angels were singing above me as I pulled the game off the Orem UT Savers store shelf and figured out what it was! With my coupon for 30% off games, it was only $2.90!
Another June haul from Savers above. I got the book on bread machine bread for my son-in-law. He is such a foodie and is just starting to experiment with his $300 bread machine. The Disney’s Who’s Who replaces the duplicate one I got two years ago which one of my grandsons ripped. My daughter repaired it with blue tape on the spine, but it just didn’t look as nice as the other books on the shelf. I had just been wishing to get a replacement, and then voila, it showed up at Savers in just a few days! I love magical thrifting moments like that!
Another Savers haul from June. The fidget toy/Star Cube has proven to be a hit among everyone. It folds and flips into different configurations. Still new in the box. It was $5.99, so that was pricey, but I decided it was worth it. So fun! The drawing book looked brand new! It’s one-inch thick. I think it was $5 so a bit pricey too for a book but totally worth it.
Another Orem Savers haul from June above. More baskets! The polka dot ribbon is just so sweet!
A June Savers haul but from a different Savers than I normally go to, this time, in Draper UT. I review the This is The World book over here.
This haul above is from the Sandy UT Deseret Industries. I was told by an employee from that store that professional thrifters have told him that the Sandy UT DI is the best DI in Utah. I went looking for baskets and a top for Independence Day so was thrilled to find those things and get a few books.
Everything above is from the Springville UT DI. It was such a great haul! So many great goodies!!! I had just been wanting more pillowcases and then found some! The pillowcases are the gray material. The thing with the boy’s face is a songbook by Janeen Brady of Brite Music fame, called Songs for a Mormon Child. I already have a copy, from my maternal grandmother, gifted to my family when I was a child, but was thrilled to find another copy, for only a quarter! Now when we have family sing-a-longs, people can have a copy of the book to sing with from the couch and don’t have to stand around the piano. I’ve always wanted a copy of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible all in one book, so I was so happy to find that. Then Pillow Talk is about marriage. I’m always happy to find books about Christian marriage. The peach dress is so pretty! Then I found another Susan Branch book. That’s the tiny book with the red bow on it. Hooray! The Outlaw Thanksgiving book is a picture book loosely based on a story that took place in Utah. I like to read it aloud every year around Thanksgiving, and I have to check it out from the public library. I actually had to pay an overdue fine last fall because I kept forgetting to turn it in. So now I finally have my own copy! Another hooray! The white wicker thing with flowers is a tissue box cover. I knew exactly where to put it, to cover the cube tissue box that is on the side of my white desk. Then the red book is Christmas sheet music by Janice Kapp Perry, a wonderful composer. She writes such beautiful songs! Breakbeat Bible is for my drummer son. I got a Wrinkle in Time because my husband had just been listening to it in audio. I added it to my classic YA novel collection. Then there’s a little red basket, a book about grilling, which is great because we finally got a BBQ grill a year ago when two of my sons gave one to my husband for Father’s Day, and with my missionary son gone we need tutoring on grilling. Then I got some faith in God conversation cards, and then, the piece de resistance of the trip, drumroll please…
a DK book about homeopathy! Only $1.50!!!! Go here to see more about this book! Then go here to see all I’ve written about homeopathy. If you’re not using it, you are missing out. Anyway, this particular trip was such a grand thrifting haul! The best thrift haul of this whole page!
I got the above for my first thrifting trip in July, at the Springville DI, on my trip home from my parents’ cabin after spending Independence Day with extended family there. Go here and scroll to below the middle of that post, to read my description of the stuff above.
A Bill of Rights game!!! From the Good and the Beautiful company. It was $2. I bought it at the American Fork DI. I went there to find black pants for my husband, which I did find, then forgot to include them in the photo before I gave them to him. I also found the game that night. My son and I played it one morning for school. A great addition to my gameschooling collection!
More baskets! I think I’ve met my basket quota, LOL!
Everything above came from two different Savers: Orem UT and Draper UT.
First, there’s a perfect gray frame for a print of a painting of Jesus Christ by Greg Olsen that I took from a church magazine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I had been wanting a gray frame to go with the print, so this was perfect. That was definitely another magical thrifting moment, where I went to the store with the intention to find a gray 8×10 picture frame, and there it was! The Eric Dowdle puzzle is about national parks. Oops, there are the gray pillowcases again. I didn’t mean to include them twice. I gave the college hacks book to my BYU-attending July birthday son for one of his birthday gifts.
Savers emailed me a coupon for women’s skirts, 30% off. So I took advantage of that and got the skirts above and below. Yay! I couldn’t resist the Robert McCloskey treasury for $4. I’ll be reading that aloud to the grandsons for sure! Then, another Eric Dowdle puzzle, this time about BYU football. I’m going to save it for somebody for Christmas, either my husband or one of my sons.
A haul from two different DIs: Sandy and Springville. My husband needed new jeans, and I found him some Calvin Klein’s for $8, using my DI survey coupon code. Then the black pants are for my July birthday son, because he asked for some black activewear pants for using in his dance classes. Then we have some more floral tops, some books, games, an office organizer that matches the teal and white theme of my desk, and best of all, a Reader’s Digest songbook! It has so many fun songs, like the Olympics theme, Indiana Jones movie theme, some popular love songs from movies, popular classical music that you typically hear in cartoons, and much more!! I reward myself after doing my strength-training exercises with playing a song from this book.
Last of all, these books above from the Orem Savers. When you buy 4 books, you get one free. I’m saving the Minecrafters book as a birthday gift for either my grandson or nephew.
My favorite finds of these spring and summer hauls? The DK homeopathy book, the Reader’s Digest Songbook, and the Jane Game. Such amazing treats for the heart and mind!!! I feel so blessed by God with these.
I’d love to hear about any of your thrifting finds! Please share below! If you need any more convincing to go thrifting, watch Toni of Our Thrifty Homeschool below.
This podcast interview, turned into a video below, is so informative! It features Hilda LaBrada Gore, host of the Wise Traditions Podcast, interviewing Dr. Jeremy Ayres and John Gusty.
Here is a summary of the video, copied and pasted from YouTube:
“Most medical professionals don’t read the latest studies. A lot of modern medicine is based on bad science (B.S.). Conventional medicine was never set up to promote good health; it was meant for profit. If these statements shock you, that is part of the point. Our guests today, Dr. Jeremy Ayres and John Gusty, are co-authors of The Red Pill Revolution and they are on a mission to uncover the deceptive practices interwoven in modern medicine. They invite you to dig deeper to discover its dark roots and the industry that has developed around it. Listen with curiosity to learn how to take your health into your own hands and to opt out of the conventional system that is tied to the food and the pharmaceutical industry.”
Some of my favorite quotes and paraphrased truth bombs from the above video interview:
“Science is never settled.”
“Don’t ‘trust the science,’ ‘true science’ means ‘challenge the science.'”
“Can the modern medical industry cite any victories? Is anyone less fat? Less sick?”
“Modern medicine, although it’s the youngest medicine on the planet. Of course, there’s some merits. If you’re in a car accident and you’re bleeding, or have broken bones, as long as you get in front of a decent trauma team, they’re the people that you need to see. But they base their whole foundation on ‘evidence-based medicine.’ And you know, after 30 years, and there’s many scientists that we respect that would agree with what I’m saying, but when you look at the ‘science,’ turns out there’s almost no science going on. And so, the evidence-based medicine is usually based on non-science or what I call BS, bad science. And from that they draw their confidence to make such decisions.”
“Science is a discipline, no different than honesty or fidelity. It’s not a government institution. It’s not a building with an address. It’s not a group of people.”
“The ancient meaning of doctor is teacher. So, a true doctor teaches people to get out of their disease. A doctor teaches people how not to offend nature in order to get out of their ‘dis-ease.’ “
That’s just scratching the surface! He suggests we get outside, get sunlight, drink living water, which is distilled, and take breaks from exposing ourselves to electrical frequencies which come from staring at screens and using electrical lights.
One more big truth bomb he shared was the history of today’s medical schools and the founding of modern medicine. Keep reading for all the juicy details.
Did you know the following?
Dr. Ayres basically said (the following is all paraphrased for clarity) that the Rockefellers wanted a new market for the oil they were selling, so they paid for the Flexner Report. The Flexner Report started the beginning of the modern medicine industry, which is based on pharmaceutical drugs. Dr. Ayres said that most if not all pharmaceutical drugs are made from petroleum. The modern medicine industry was created by the Rockefellers to market petroleum in the form of drugs.
Here are more details about that, again paraphrased and edited for clarity, from Dr. Ayres, as he states in the video above:
“A hundred years ago, we as humans were practicing ancestral natural ways and homeopathic medicine worldwide. And then industry came in by the way of the Rockefellers and it turned into this petroleum pedaling-monstrosity. It’s more nefarious than that. They deliberately set up a Flexner report funded by the Carnegies which is Rockefeller money. This was because osteopathy, chiropractics, homeopathy, herbalism, and naturopathy were more successful [in the 1800s] and more used than what were then the chemist or the pharmacists or the or the doctors of the time. So, the modern medicine industry was set up to go out and destroy those industries.”
“So what they did was they set a report which was not accurate. It said that everybody should have a standardized [medical] education and the way to get a standardized [medical] education bankrupted most of those current universities and colleges from the get-go. The only way you could survive as a medical school was get a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and you’d only get a grant if you had someone from the Rockefeller Foundation or Carnegies on your board. And so bit by bit the rotten apple got in and everything that used to be brilliant was watered down.”
“You know most chiropractics, osteopathy, and herbalism is a watered-down poor cousin of what the medical industry was. The Rockefellers set up as a business model that modern medicine became legal by governments and worldwide the primary care. And it’s a business model. If you let me just finish very quickly, Hilda, ask yourself this simple question. You know, when you go back to basic journalism of follow the money, uh, pharmaceuticals are bigger business than any other business on the planet by far. And so, what do you need if you’re in that business? You need sick people. How do you make people sick? You educate them stupid. And they’ve done a good job over the last hundred years. And Weston Price has done a fantastic job of trying to rectify that. Let’s not just gloss over the fact that, you know, you have to go to their universities, which Rockefeller Foundation has slowly but surely taken over all university boards. So, you got to go to their universities to get their certification to work in their medical facilities and have their title. It’s like Jeremy keeps saying, it’s a business model. Okay? And if you go against that business model, you’re going against a huge monolith monstrosity of, you know, it’s more powerful than governments. I mean government, it’s all intertwined. It’s this big, massive economic engine that if everyone was well, that engine wouldn’t run very well. So, they have to keep people sick.”
Wow! So what can we do instead? Like they said, modern medicine is great if you are in an accident and need trauma care quickly for acute issues. Modern medicine is not so great in curing chronic illnesses.
I suggest preventive care in the form of diet (a low carb diet to lower insulin levels, like Dr. Ben Bikman says here and here, as most diseases relate to high insulin) and homeopathic medicine. You can read about all my experiences with homeopathic medicine here. It’s the medicine any crunchy mom dreams of! It works, it’s very inexpensive, and it’s non-toxic, meaning, it has no side effects.
I can’t end this blog post without saying that Dr. Annette Bosworth, aka Dr. Boz, is a doctor who is actually changing people’s lives with education and diet instead of just pushing pills that maintains people in their diseases. She is an internal medicine doctor who found out, by putting her mom who had cancer, on a keto/ low-carb diet, that cancer can be healed in some instances with the keto diet. I’ve watched enough of her videos to know that she regrets prescribing so many drugs to her former patients. She now has a goal to help as many people get off their drugs as as many people she prescribed drugs to. I applaud her for her work! She is an example of a true doctor who teaches her patients and cures them, getting them off drugs. Let me know of any others out there in the comments section below please!
Read the book above. A summary of the book is below from amazon.
“This book may be a hard pill to swallow. But it’s a necessary conversation that must be had for anyone wishing to sanely navigate the chaotic & predatory culture we all find ourselves in. We all know something is just not right. We all sense the imbalance, injustice & insanity. But what can we actually do about it? Who & what can be trusted?”
“These 5 authors are not your typical academic lot. Most of what is discussed inside this book would never make its way into mainstream corporate media. Which is not only the problem… it’s also the solution.”
“Be prepared to become a very different human being.”
Credit for Images Above and Below: Latter-day Media YouTube Channel
As a follow-up to what I blogged last week here, about my experience with following the Holy Ghost to cure me of my cold, I’m sharing this wonderful video below.
It came out on Latter-day Media’s YouTube channel just recently. I enjoyed it immensely! I watched it while I did some strength training exercises. The presenter, Alden Beaman, explains how to receive revelation from the Holy Ghost. I just love this quote from him, “The light of Christ will show you a direction, and the gift of the Holy Ghost gives you explanation.”
Then he goes on to say, “He [God] will not explain first…that would interfere with our agency.”
Brother Beaman shows how the Urim and Thummim relates to revelation that we can receive. The Urim and Thummim was an instrument that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ. It’s also mentioned in the Bible three times: Exodus 28:30, 1 Samuel 28:6 (at least the Urim part), and Ezra 2:63.
Urim means “light” and thummim means “perfection.” Revelation is like the Urim and Thummim in that it involves light, the light of Christ, to show us a direction and then eventually as we follow it, we will receive more of the Holy Ghost to give us an explanation.
Below are some screenshots from the video. It’s all so good! I highly recommend you watch it as soon as you can.
I loved his story of following the Holy Spirit to find a new job when he was looking for a career change. If you want more stories of following the Holy Spirit, go here.
This image of the 9 levels of perfection is so fascinating!
Tree of Life Mothering 