Courage Plaque

Our 2010 Theme for the Young Women and Young Men in our Church is Joshua 1:9.

“Be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

We wanted a way for the Young Women to remember to have courage everyday throughout this next year, especially before they head off to school. Elder Marion D. Hanks said “Courage is not the absence of fear ; true courage is manifest in bravely doing what has to be done in spite of fears or foes or the foolishness of the crowd or the taunts of the group. True courage is doing the right thing in spite of the odds or opposition or apprehension.”

So we thought we’d print out, in vinyl, the letters for COURAGE. They can place them on their mirror, on their door, on their locker at school, or attach them to a block of wood. Hopefully this will remind them to have the courage they need to stand up for right and know the Lord is on their side.

We’re going to have a class, in a few weeks, to help them make this plaque with the full scripture on it.

Here’s how I did it. Print the scripture on any decorative paper you like, but don’t print the word courage. You can experiment with different fonts and letter sizes to get the look you like. I then cut out the letters to courage with my Cricut (love that thing). Since I was using white, I decided to try contact paper instead of vinyl because it’s cheaper. It works great. I had to adjust the depth of the blade, because the contact paper is thinner.

I then mod podged the printed paper onto a board I got at the dollar store. I used a small roller to smooth it out. After it dried about 15 minutes I sanded the excess paper off around the board. I like to sand it because I like the finish it gives to the edge. You can also ink the edges after you sand it, if you like.

Now it’s time to add the word “courage”. First, I found the center of the board. I stuck the middle letter of the word to the center of the board and worked out from there. I also used the ruler to keep the letters straight as I was sticking them on. The backing was actually easier to get off the contact paper than it is off the vinyl.

Here’s the finished product.

I think I’ll put it in the kids loft area. They spend a lot of time there and I hope this will be a reminder to them to have courage, each day, as they leave our home.