Happy Friday to you!  Has it been a tough week for you too?  It’s been a REALLY tough week for our neighbors to the north in Oklahoma.  Have you taken the opportunity to make a contribution to the relief effort yet?  If not, here is a good site with some info.

This Friday I want to share with you a favorite site for the kids, but don’t worry there is some stuff for the adults later in this post.  “Made by Joel” (MadebyJoel.com) is a great site where Joel shares cutouts, designs and simple ideas that you can make with your kids.  Just yesterday he posted “Paper City Circus” on his site (pic below).  His cutouts are easy to print, cut and fold.  If they are printed on heavier paper or card stock they can be quite durable.

Image courtesy of MadebyJoel.com

He has other amazing cutout sets that he has created: the original paper city, paper Paris, travel-size paper Paris, paper nativity scene, paper Sydney and paper road trip.  There are also all sorts of vehicles and even a helicopter with landing pad.  He also has a bunch of great coloring sheets featuring his whimsical style of art.  (The Easter coloring sheet was our daughter’s favorite.)  There are also tons of creative projects under the various age categories, including this cool fire breathing dragon Father’s Day card.

Summer is coming up and there are lots of ideas for some simple fun on Made by Joel.  It is nice to have an indoor project or craft for the kids during our hot summer afternoons here in Texas.  I am not being compensated by “Made by Joel” just wanted to share with you one of my favorite sites for simple and fun activities for the kids.

I have two other quick things I want to share with you:

1) My friend Paul is giving away free digital copies of a book he wrote about Ecclesiastes (that’s a book in the Old Testament if you didn’t know.)  There aren’t too many books written about Ecclesiastes, so this is a good resource to have.  It is the Kindle edition of the book but you can load Kindle onto any device for free.  Today is the last day to download “A Little Birdie Told Me” for free.  I’m currently reading two other books so I have only had a chance to glance through Paul’s ebook, but it looks like an easy to read summary of Ecclesiastes that provides various insights and illustrations.  How can you go wrong with a section titled, “Oreo Cookies and the Meaning of Life.”  Thanks to Paul for sharing this great resource.  You can grab your free copy here.  You can also check out Paul at his blog.

2) Don’t forget about the book that I am giving away next Monday – “Start” by Jon Acuff.  I’m giving away a copy of the book to three different winners.  For some reason, this giveaway hasn’t really caught on like the last one did so your odds of winning are pretty stinking good 🙂  I think that “Start” was an incredible read.  If you’re not satisfied with your job or where you are at in life this is a good motivational read.  Dave Ramsey just posted a letter to Twitter yesterday talking about how proud he is of Jon Acuff.  The book debuted on all the ‘best seller’ lists you can think of.  It sold so many copies that it went out of stock on Amazon.  It’s a great book and you can register to win your free copy here.

I hope you found these free resources to be helpful!  If you did, could you share this post using the buttons below?  I would really appreciate it!