Oooooo what a great question. Our kids definitely contribute to the binder - through art that I save, particular recipes that they LOVE, etc - but I tend to organize it.
I love the idea of building it with your kids, though!! Or maybe they could each keep their own? I'm reminded of our stint of homescooling during the pandemic closures. I called it the "school of hard knocks" (lol), and we went to as many Washington ghost towns and historic sites as we could. Each of our kids kept a notebook, and when we'd get home, they'd write or draw some memories from the place, and paste any brochures, etc into the notebook. I wonder what that might look like for a kiddo-driven liturgical binder!
I would love to develop a liturgical year binder, but haven't started beyond the beginnings my mother-in-law gave me a few years back. The biggest thing I'd like to include (besides the foods "we always have" for feasts but I can never remember!) is sheet music for the beloved songs throughout the year. Maria von Trapp naturally has many suggestions, but I also like the Waldorf School Songs website b/c it has a surprising number of beautiful Christian songs despite the woo woo theology of Steiner!
Haha yes Steiner definitely brings the woo-woo! I love using the songs collected in Waldorf traditions, too - so many of them are old folk songs getting a bit of revival, which is always wonderful. Have you seen these books from Hawthorn Press? They're really wonderful resources.
Great question. Honestly, not that strong - it's mostly a collection of old-fashioned folk songs, crafts, games, etc., geared toward liturgical year holidays (with some crossover holidays like May Day). They have Tasha Tudor vibes!
Update: I'm so grateful for this recommendation; the recipes and activities are so authentically of a folk heritage being lost, without over-sentimentalizing the past. And it has so many rounds that I have learned from others but never thought I'd find in print. Thank you again!
I love the idea of having the recipes in with the binder! I was thinking of activities, lists, and printables, but merging the cookbook aspect is a great idea!
The perfectionist in me wants all the recipes to live in my kitchen recipe binder, but in reality, these are the special things I'm going to want for each feast. I love it!
What a beautiful calendar wheel! What I love about having a binder is recalling the memories from all the resources I’ve used over the years and finding inspiration from others I could still use in the future. August always knocks me off my feet with the start of school, but by the time Michaelmas rolls around, I’ve got my groove back. :)
I've also felt totally knocked off my feet with the start of school! I love the feasts in August, but I'm often a bit depleted by that point, haha. Michaelmas for sure feels invigorating.
I love using the binder as a combination of a planner and a memory book! That's so great!
I’m always so inspired by your liturgical year posts and I want to make my own. However, I feel like I’m swimming upstream and struggle to make time to create a binder. I’m also very much a perfectionist and want my binder to look like yours do, but I am not an artist so I feel like it would be…meh. Haha.
You're always so kind, Ashley - thank you so so much! Trust me, you're not alone. I have gone through so many perfectionist hurdles in this process...trying to use color-coded Moleskines and then spacing out the days "just right" so that everything would fit beautifullyl (leaving me with half-finished, or empty journals, because it got too stressful!) I even tried to keep my handwriting perfectly neat when I started just using plain notebook paper.
I can promise you that my liturgical binders are an absolute hodge-podge, not because that's easy for me, but because all my perfectionist tendencies just wouldn't work. My cover pages don't even match.
Did you get a chance to watch my clunky video where I started making a new binder? If you watch it, just keep in mind that I'm a tightly-wound perfectionist, so this is all a stretch in so many ways for me, haha!
Thank you so much for sharing my site with your readers. I haven't created my binder yet - it lives in my head! - but I would love to do that this year. I feel like fall is the season of fresh ideas. And, of course, the Church year begins with Advent in autumn, so it's a great time to start something new.
It's such a pleasure to get to share your site, Kelli! As you know, your site has been one of my earliest, most long-time Church year resources that I lean on. Autumn definitely feels like the time to start something new!
I have long been engaged with the liturgical calendar and the church year but your resources have helped me consider how to me more intentional with recording my thoughts and noticing how the seasons weave in and out of my days. I’m still in the “piles of papers” stage but I love the idea of pulling it all together. Thank you for the beautiful resources you share.
I'm so delighted to know that my resources are helping you to connect the calendar more to your days! That's my whole goal...for a long while, in exploring the calendar, I focused on collecting information rather than truly seeing how it weaves into my own life. Learning to do that has been so helpful.
I absolutely love all of these resources. We try to celebrate various feasts throughout the year in our parish community and homeschool nature group and everyone is always delighted!
I love the idea of a liturgical binder and printed up many of your resources. I am a person who tends to get overwhelmed in the sense that I want everything to be finished at once and match and I get worried about messing up! All of that means I tend to put things off instead of just getting started. I need a good kick in the pants. 😂
Ohhhh my friend, I am right there with you!! 😂 I kept procrastinating on painting cover pages because of the hand-wringing over the design and the matchy-matchiness of it. I've been trying to embrace the 'just do it' mentality anyway, since waiting for perfection meant I was never actually doing it. (I even tried using color-coded Moleskines for awhile, but the fretting over how to space everything out just perfect left them perpetually unfinishsed or empty.)
Did you get a chance to watch my clunky binder-building video? It could be subtitled "A recovering perfectionist tries to organize things" haha
Thank you Kristin, my liturgical binder is beautiful!♥️
Love ‘A Green Rule’ and had to subscribe🙏🏻
And just a quick question, if we are not successful in regards to the giveaway, is there somewhere, where can purchase the beautiful liturgical wheel? It’s so beautiful 🌹
You’ve made my very stormy day wonderful🙏🏻 thank you
I’m very excited to start a liturgical binder! My husband and I already have started some great traditions, but it would be nice to keep a record of what exactly we did! We don’t have kids yet, but I keep seeing so many great ideas for activities, so it’d be nice to have a place to start saving those too!
This would be SUCH a sweet way to keep a record of how you've celebrated! And honestly, although we have kids who we include in all of this, the liturgical calendar...all the meals, flowers, activities... has been one of the most impactful methods of spiritual growth for me! (I mean, it's still and ALWAYS an ongoing process, haha!)
What a beautiful set of resources! My question is…do the kids “help” make the binder or is it more of mom’s organizational thing?
Oooooo what a great question. Our kids definitely contribute to the binder - through art that I save, particular recipes that they LOVE, etc - but I tend to organize it.
I love the idea of building it with your kids, though!! Or maybe they could each keep their own? I'm reminded of our stint of homescooling during the pandemic closures. I called it the "school of hard knocks" (lol), and we went to as many Washington ghost towns and historic sites as we could. Each of our kids kept a notebook, and when we'd get home, they'd write or draw some memories from the place, and paste any brochures, etc into the notebook. I wonder what that might look like for a kiddo-driven liturgical binder!
Love all the additional resource sites, Kristin; thank you!
You're so welcome, Deborah! This is just the tip of the iceberg!
I would love to develop a liturgical year binder, but haven't started beyond the beginnings my mother-in-law gave me a few years back. The biggest thing I'd like to include (besides the foods "we always have" for feasts but I can never remember!) is sheet music for the beloved songs throughout the year. Maria von Trapp naturally has many suggestions, but I also like the Waldorf School Songs website b/c it has a surprising number of beautiful Christian songs despite the woo woo theology of Steiner!
Haha yes Steiner definitely brings the woo-woo! I love using the songs collected in Waldorf traditions, too - so many of them are old folk songs getting a bit of revival, which is always wonderful. Have you seen these books from Hawthorn Press? They're really wonderful resources.
https://www.hawthornpress.com/books/family/seasonal-celebrations/all-year-round/
I love the idea of including ready-to-go hymns in your binder!
Those look lovely! Definitely going to ILL them. How strong is the woo-woo in them in your experience?
Great question. Honestly, not that strong - it's mostly a collection of old-fashioned folk songs, crafts, games, etc., geared toward liturgical year holidays (with some crossover holidays like May Day). They have Tasha Tudor vibes!
Wow, that sounds perfect. Thanks for the recommendation!
Update: I'm so grateful for this recommendation; the recipes and activities are so authentically of a folk heritage being lost, without over-sentimentalizing the past. And it has so many rounds that I have learned from others but never thought I'd find in print. Thank you again!
Wonderful!! I'm so glad to hear these are a good fit for you...they've brought me so much delight and inspiration over the years.
My best practice is to do a bit at a time and try not to get behind.
Absolutely!! I tend to be an all-or-nothing person, so learning to let it be a 'living project' has been a helpful adjustment.
I love the idea of having the recipes in with the binder! I was thinking of activities, lists, and printables, but merging the cookbook aspect is a great idea!
The perfectionist in me wants all the recipes to live in my kitchen recipe binder, but in reality, these are the special things I'm going to want for each feast. I love it!
What a beautiful calendar wheel! What I love about having a binder is recalling the memories from all the resources I’ve used over the years and finding inspiration from others I could still use in the future. August always knocks me off my feet with the start of school, but by the time Michaelmas rolls around, I’ve got my groove back. :)
I've also felt totally knocked off my feet with the start of school! I love the feasts in August, but I'm often a bit depleted by that point, haha. Michaelmas for sure feels invigorating.
I love using the binder as a combination of a planner and a memory book! That's so great!
I’m always so inspired by your liturgical year posts and I want to make my own. However, I feel like I’m swimming upstream and struggle to make time to create a binder. I’m also very much a perfectionist and want my binder to look like yours do, but I am not an artist so I feel like it would be…meh. Haha.
You're always so kind, Ashley - thank you so so much! Trust me, you're not alone. I have gone through so many perfectionist hurdles in this process...trying to use color-coded Moleskines and then spacing out the days "just right" so that everything would fit beautifullyl (leaving me with half-finished, or empty journals, because it got too stressful!) I even tried to keep my handwriting perfectly neat when I started just using plain notebook paper.
I can promise you that my liturgical binders are an absolute hodge-podge, not because that's easy for me, but because all my perfectionist tendencies just wouldn't work. My cover pages don't even match.
Did you get a chance to watch my clunky video where I started making a new binder? If you watch it, just keep in mind that I'm a tightly-wound perfectionist, so this is all a stretch in so many ways for me, haha!
https://www.hearthstonefables.com/p/building-a-liturgical-year-binder
Thank you so much for sharing my site with your readers. I haven't created my binder yet - it lives in my head! - but I would love to do that this year. I feel like fall is the season of fresh ideas. And, of course, the Church year begins with Advent in autumn, so it's a great time to start something new.
It's such a pleasure to get to share your site, Kelli! As you know, your site has been one of my earliest, most long-time Church year resources that I lean on. Autumn definitely feels like the time to start something new!
I have long been engaged with the liturgical calendar and the church year but your resources have helped me consider how to me more intentional with recording my thoughts and noticing how the seasons weave in and out of my days. I’m still in the “piles of papers” stage but I love the idea of pulling it all together. Thank you for the beautiful resources you share.
I'm so delighted to know that my resources are helping you to connect the calendar more to your days! That's my whole goal...for a long while, in exploring the calendar, I focused on collecting information rather than truly seeing how it weaves into my own life. Learning to do that has been so helpful.
I absolutely love all of these resources. We try to celebrate various feasts throughout the year in our parish community and homeschool nature group and everyone is always delighted!
I love that! What a great way to integrate all these different communities into the feasts!
What a treasure! Making such a resource for my family is awesome.
What a beautiful offer! Really enjoying the content; engaging with the liturgical year is really adding depth to my journey...
I'm so glad to hear that, Katy! I find the same to be true...it just goes deeper and deeper.
This is a concept with a lot of possibilities...
I love the idea of a liturgical binder and printed up many of your resources. I am a person who tends to get overwhelmed in the sense that I want everything to be finished at once and match and I get worried about messing up! All of that means I tend to put things off instead of just getting started. I need a good kick in the pants. 😂
Ohhhh my friend, I am right there with you!! 😂 I kept procrastinating on painting cover pages because of the hand-wringing over the design and the matchy-matchiness of it. I've been trying to embrace the 'just do it' mentality anyway, since waiting for perfection meant I was never actually doing it. (I even tried using color-coded Moleskines for awhile, but the fretting over how to space everything out just perfect left them perpetually unfinishsed or empty.)
Did you get a chance to watch my clunky binder-building video? It could be subtitled "A recovering perfectionist tries to organize things" haha
https://www.hearthstonefables.com/p/building-a-liturgical-year-binder
Thank you Kristin, my liturgical binder is beautiful!♥️
Love ‘A Green Rule’ and had to subscribe🙏🏻
And just a quick question, if we are not successful in regards to the giveaway, is there somewhere, where can purchase the beautiful liturgical wheel? It’s so beautiful 🌹
You’ve made my very stormy day wonderful🙏🏻 thank you
Oh Annamaria, I'm so delighted to hear that! I hope it was a cozy day with the storm. :)
Kelly's beautiful liturgical wheel calendar can be purchased on her web site! (I have one hanging in my studio, too - it's stunning)
https://morningstarseedcompany.com/products/perpetual-calendar
I’m very excited to start a liturgical binder! My husband and I already have started some great traditions, but it would be nice to keep a record of what exactly we did! We don’t have kids yet, but I keep seeing so many great ideas for activities, so it’d be nice to have a place to start saving those too!
This would be SUCH a sweet way to keep a record of how you've celebrated! And honestly, although we have kids who we include in all of this, the liturgical calendar...all the meals, flowers, activities... has been one of the most impactful methods of spiritual growth for me! (I mean, it's still and ALWAYS an ongoing process, haha!)