Scriptures to help with depression & anxiety

Many of you know of the struggle I've had with mental illness over the last 10 years. I feel great right now, and my postpartum anxiety is finally at bay so I feel like I can share this with a perspective of looking into the glass instead of being on the other side of it trying to get out. During my bouts of depression saying prayers was one of the hardest things for me to do. I didn't pray as much because I felt unworthy to pray. I felt that I was too worthless and not good enough to pray. This is so untrue, I know this now but in the middle of it no matter how many times I tried to tell my self that was untrue I never grasped that concept. Reading scriptures and conference talks was what helped me the most. I felt they gave me the strength that I needed to keep going and it also gave me a testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ and how he can help me with my struggles.
I had a list of go to scriptures that would help me the most, as well as stories of prophets and apostles who also struggled with mental illness. Did you know these stories exist? They do and I hope this list will help some of you. Remember that "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" (Doctrine & Covenants 18:10) , and you are worth it, I promise!!

Old Testament
Deuteronomy 3:22
Deuteronomy 31:8
Joshua 1:9
Psalm 13
Psalms 40: 1-3
Isaiah 41:10
Jeremiah 17: 7-8

New Testament
Matthew 5:4
Matthew 26: 37-38 (one of my favorites. It talks about when Christ was going into the garden of Gethsemane and how his soul felt. This one helped me the most realize that even our Savior has felt these feelings)
John 3:16
Romans 8:35-39
1 Corinthians 15:19
2 Corinthians 1: 3-4
Philippians 4:13

Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ
 2 Nephi 4
Mosiah 27:29
Alma 8:14
Alma 26:27-31
Alma 36: 1-24
Alma 37:45

Doctrine & Covenants
Section 18:10
Section 121: 1-9
Section 136:29

General Conference Talks
April 2009: None were with Him Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Oct 2009: Hold on Ann M. Dibb
Oct 2013: Like a Broken Vessel Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

XO
Caitlin

How to make Erin Condren Life Planner Stickers: Heart Checklists

The planner sticker series is back. Honestly it's really time consuming to create these posts so I almost didn't write this one. But let's get into it. The first heart checklist boxes I am going to show you how to do are these ones:

(I will do ombre heart checklists next time)
If you haven't read my original post in this series please go do so now. This post will go over the basic things you'll need to create this checklist. The main one being digital scrapbook paper you will be using for your designs. It also covers what software program you will need to design the stickers.

For these posts I will be using the silhouette studio free version.

Step 1: Open your design studio and we will start with full boxes!
First you will want to change your page settings to say 8.5 x 11 for a normal sheet of printer paper.

 

Step 2: Find the draw rectangle box and draw a rectangle on the paper.

 Step 3: Once you have your rectangle on the left you are going to click the mouse sign again so you can work with the rectangle, otherwise you'll just draw another rectangle on the page. Once you click the mouse you will click on the rectangle.  Then in the upper boxes you will click on the window that says scale.

 In this scale window you are going to uncheck the lock aspect button, and for the width say 1.5 in and for the height say 1.9 inches. That makes it the perfect size for the Erin Condren boxes.

Step 4: Now that you have your base for the initial background color you are going to use the color drop feature to change it to match your digital paper.
In the upper right hand corner of the page you'll see a box with a bucket.

Click on that box and then this drop down menu will appear on your right:

You'll see the color dropper there on the first row: 

Click the color dropper and drag it to your pattern and click on a color in the pattern you want to make your background for your heart checklist. Once you have filled in the box with the color you like it's time to create the second box which will be the transparent box that goes over this box we just created.

Step 5: Repeat steps 2 & 3. Only instead of resizing the box to 1.9 x 1.5 you will resize it to be 1.695 x 1.276. This will be slightly smaller but still leave a border of the original color. We are leaving the color of this box so you don't need to change it.

Step 6: We are going to change the transparency of the box we just created it. In the upper right hand corner you are going to click on the box that has the pattern in the middle of it. Looks like this:

 When you click on that box this menu will appear in the right hand corner.

You will want to click on the advanced options to have this drop down menu appear.

Where it says transparency (at the very bottom) you will type in 60.4 to change the transparency level. Next take that box and put it on top of your colored box we created.

Now to make them even you will go and click on the align button (highlighted blue in the above picture) and click on align center. Then highlight both of the boxes by right clicking on dragging your mouse over them and then click group to group these two boxes together.

Step 7: Now we are going to make the heart checklist part. First thing you will need to do is get a heart shape. You can either hand draw a heart shape in silhouette design using the little pencil which is over to the left or you can just search for a heart icon on google and use one of those images.
I hand drew my heart and just thickened the line a little bit to make it look a little better.
Once you have your heart image you are going to select the replicate button on the top right bar that looks like this:

 

 When you click on that button this list will appear.

 
You will click duplicate below 5 times so you heart image is created 5 times and you have a small checklist looking like this:

 

Step 8: Next we want to space out those hearts so they align with our full box. 

You will click on the scale button again:

You will type in these measurements for this: 1.696 h and 0.197 width. Then your hearts will be spaced out to the perfect length and it will look like this.

Next you will drag that over to your full box and group them together. You can align them by clicking on the align tool (the button right next to the scale tool) and clicking align center. This will make the final checklist box look really pretty. 

And that's it. 

Sorry this post took so long to write. As you can see I wanted to be as detailed as possible and it just takes a long time to blog when I have a toddler running around. 

Thanks for sticking with me. I will try and blog about ombre checklists in a week or so.

XO

Caitlin

 

August Lifestyle and Beauty Favorites

Hey all! I am back! I decided to step back into blogging full on for September and see how I do. I am thinking my schedule will be twice a week for now. Blogging has been such a fun way to document our lives. It's also my creative outlet and a way to connect to so many people. I know at this time of year my post on how to set up a college binder has been getting a lot of hits. I am going to be doing an updated version of that soon, as my tastes have changed. I have graduated with my degree and am not pursuing a master's degree but my husband is currently in school so I will use his syllabus to help with the post.
In the meantime I have been wanting to do a lifestyle and beauty favorites post for a while. Many of my favorite YouTube beauty gurus have posted their favorite posts today and it got me inspired to do mine. I have had a lot of favorite's so let's start with some fashion items.

 This top is one of my favorite finds from the summer! It's from Ross and I love it. It's a little flowy but was perfect for hot summer days. The big pattern just works for me.

 This C necklace I got in honor of my daughter Claire. I love to wear it and it is just special to me. I got it from My Name Necklace. They have a lot of options you can choose from but this is just so simple and Claire doesn't pull on it anymore, she touches and looks at it but doesn't pull on it so she doesn't break the chain which is good.
Now for beauty favorites.

 This body wash! You guys, it is amazing, and as you can see I almost used it all up in about 2 weeks. It's from Walmart, or any store that you can find soft soap brand and it smells so good. Makes my skin feel so soft and I use it as a shaving cream. I lather it all up on my loufa and then put it on my legs. Makes for a great shaving cream.

Urban Decay Naked Palette. This palette has been my go to for a while now. I love the colors for fall and they are so simple and great for every day. I usually use the three lightest shades on  a daily basis. If I want to switch it up then I will use the golden toned shades. I can create so many looks with this palette and it was worth every penny. Highly recommend.

 

Mac Melba blush. I am in love. This is my blush! I  have worn it every day for about a month now and it just brings the perfect wash of color to my skin. It's great for my fair skin tone but even better when I am tan.  Love it so much. 

Now onto some multi-media favorites

First off my planner. I couldn't do a favorites post without talking about my Erin Condren Life Planner.  I am loving it so much lately. Planning has been a therapeutic, creative outlet for me and not only that but it helps me combat my social anxiety so much. Check out the site if you haven't and you can use that link to get $10.00 off your first order. 
With my planner I have loved creating my own stickers. It saves me a little money, lets me be creative and I enjoy the entire design process. One of my favorite shops to get digital paper from is Bloomsical on etsy. Look at these designs!

The makeup one and the fall one I am dying over. Heart eyes for day. Most shops use digital scrap booking paper to create their designs and this shop is a popular one. Check her out! And stay tuned for my series on how to create planner stickers which will be continuing this month.
Last favorite of the month was an author I discovered through the overdrive app. This author is Elizabeth Camden and she writes historical romance novels. My favorite genre to read is romance and especially historical romance. Her books are very clean, free from profanity and sex scenes which I love. Highly recommend any of her books.

Thanks for reading about my favorites this past month. Can't wait to try new things and discover old ones for my September favorites post.
XO
Caitlin