With God all things are Possible

Here are the bible passages for this week and next. I'm going to be without the internet for 10 days! We'll see how that goes! I have a feeling that I may sneak to some place where I can go online to check in, possibly post. Have a fabulous day everyone!

The first passage:

Matthew 19:26
With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

And Jess made this one while she was here:

Proverbs 4:18
The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter until the full light of day.

Love God!

So here is the passage from the first week. I have a whole stash of cardboard, so I'm going to do them all on random sized rectangle pieces of cardboard.

From the first week:


I did some embroidery. I used some wool felt. I painted with acrylic paint and used some pearl-ex to make it shimmery inside the heart.



For the second week:

Matthew 21:22
If you believe you wil receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Pretty self explanatory. Pieces of paper, I stamped some images and words over them. And then the passage is spelled out using various alphabet products. I love using various alphabets to spell things out.

Again, if anyone wants to join in, I'm going to do a new passage each week.

Just wanted to share a new link with you guys Walk Slowly, Live Wildly If you spend just a few minutes at her blog, you'll see why I love it so much. Sara is someone I can look to for inspiration. She has such a strong faith and isn't afraid to show it. And she and her husband and daughter are living in a revamped RV powered by used veg. oil. and spreading the word on sustainable living. So right up my ally!

Another thing to share with you guys. I'm really enjoying Pastor Chris' sermons from Blackhawk. You can watch this weeks sermon titled Obedience to Christ
This sermon was so great. He talked about how we will do anything for someone we appreciate and admire. His example used Brad Pitt. He said if you were working alongside Brad Pitt, you would drop anything and do whatever he asked. Not because you have to, but because you want to, because you really think he's awesome. We wouldn't argue with Brad Pitt, and say, "I'm not going to do that." We would do everything for him quickly and willingly. The theme of this sermon was, "obedience is a function of admiration" and based on Philippians 2:12-30. We should strive to love, admire, and appreciate Christ in that same way. In order for us to automatically want to drop anything and do anything for Christ and obey him, we have to spend some time with Him, getting to know him and learn and remember how awesome He is. Christ needs to pop up into our minds, just like a famous actor or athlete whom we admire.

So please anyone who finds joy in making art, make some using God's words and put it up around you so you are reminded of how wonderful He is!

Inspiration in LaConner

Do you ever have one of those days? You know, the type where you spend hours strolling through books that are so inspiring that your brain is popping with ideas? That is how I felt last week when we went to the Tulip festival.
And we found a great book store/cafe and literally spent hours there. I was also thinking how the things we see and read influence us, whether we like it or not. And then I was thinking of how great it is to fill my brain with inspiring, artistic people. This month Amy is hosting our creative juice challenge. I love it. She is doing such a great job of reminding us to GIVE to others. I love eye candy and inspiration- but I love it even more when it comes from a generous, and kind heart. I was also thinking that I would love this blog to be super inspiring and full of good stuff. The good stuff you want to be filled with. Not self centered, egotistical, or filled with these covetous desires to want stuff. I want to be about simple living. I want to live a different kind of life. I don't want a huge house with lots of expensive things. I want a cozy place that nurtures a creative life surrounded by good things. I want it to be cheap so I'm not trapped in a mortgage so I can up and leave for a year and travel and help volunteer all over.

Well, one way of doing that is making my art more focused on God. I am totally a quote girl. And there are so many good quotes in the bible. I am going to make a new tag each week focused on a bible quote. Is anyone with me here? I'm going to do it in the same fashion of the art card challenge I did last year. Although I think I would like them to be a little bit bigger. We can stretch our creative minds and make them all artsy and then type or write up the weekly bible quote on it. I'm going to stretch a string or ribbon above my art space and hang them up, or randomly put them throughout my house. I don't want to be influenced by the american way of buying, buying, buying, consuming, consuming, wanting, wanting. I want to be content and reminded of what is important. I want to remind myself each time I'm tempted to buy something pretty that if I don't buy it, it's more money saved for reaching my goal. I also need quotes around me to remind me this.

So to start us off:

Matthew 22:37-40
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

So I will post mine when I finish it. Lots of gardening to do today. Gardening is so rewarding! This is my first chance to do it. Something new to learn! And then later today I'm hoping to play with my new toys! (JoAnn Fabrics is having a HUGE 50% off sale. I cashed in my piggy bank from Christmas and got a cutting mat, and ruler, and when I was in Spokane Sue was kind enough to give me a rotary cutter- so I'm taking a stab at my first quilt with all my pillowcases!)

So be prepared. I'm going to fill this blog with the things that inspire. The good things. The things that really count. Although, you know I will have to continue posting my steals, deals, and finds- I just have to be more disciplined and not get so many!-The steal of the trip was a pair of pinking shears from a thrift store for $1! Score!

Art Challenge Catch Up

So I finally did the deck of cards art challenge. For now I used the journal prompts that Emily Falconbridge gave on her blog. Some weeks I may pick my own topics. I loved doing this. It is the smallest art I have done and it is fun to try new techniques. It's also very rewarding because it doesn't take too long. I still need to make a cute little case. I bought these cute Norman Rockwell winter scene pictures at an antique shop in Red Wing, MN.

#1 Something you are proud of

So this is the last card that I did last night. I wanted to do a cool image transfer but it didn't work too well the first time around and I was too tired to try again. I will redo this one, but since I stole jess and jeffs camera (thanks guys!) I have to take full advantage and post pics. I did journaling on the back.



#2 What is powerful to you?

To me this there was only one thing that came to mind. It's hard to tell by the picture, but it is written on cloud patterned paper. God is so cool, powerful and amazing!
#3 Make an I am statement

I liked this one, thought it was kinda fun. I say I'm beginning because I want to start putting into action my dreams and stuff I want to pursue. I am just now feeling really confident with decisions I make and just being comfortable with my own style. Last year was all about adventure and Sam and I did some crazy things. So those adventurous experiences give me the courage to dream big and believe in it. I'm beginning this blog! I'm beginning to make things so I can sell them. I'm beginning to be content no matter what my circumstances are. I could go on here. This I am statement can provoke a lot of soul searching!

I just painted it with acrylic paint and put some stickers on it and a label. I etched away the paint for the words

#4 A symbol you love

This was a tough one for me to think of. My mom called me her sunshine girl because I was always smiling and I liked to help her. It's a happy memory! I like the sun though! Love being outside, love feeling it on my face! I'm happier when the sun is around. And of course I made it using my favorite art medium as a child, cray pas! They are the best! So I made the sun on one side and journaled my love of cray pas on the back after i sanded it.


#5 Use some ephemera from your week

I loved this one! I love saving little things from trips to scrapbook. The problem is, I never get around to scrapping them, or I have trouble finding the things I save. Sam is working on this one with me! Sam and I had a wonderful weekend getaway to Redwing at a B&B. The sticker was on a bar of soap they gave us. Life's little Oasis was stamped on the outside of a brown paper bag that I got when I bought cute little dress notepads from a little shop. The little redwing symbol was from a business card. The colorful stuff on the bottom left is also from a business card from these artists who do awesome things with copper. Good memories!


#6 Some V-day LOVE

I had so much fun with this one. I mimicked the valentine bookmarks i made and gave to friends for this one. It's so funny, I never got around to sending out christmas cards, so why not a big Valentine letter? And I wanted to put something in it people could use. So, I made bookmarks. Sam and I love books, Sam is obsessed with them! Reading is so awesome, so my v-day love is for books!
I used a cool marbling technique for this paper. You take shaving cream (always fun to play with shaving cream) and squirt it into a disposable aluminum pan. Squirt some acrylic paints all over the place. Take a toothpick and swirl some marble designs into it. Then you push your paper onto the colored shaving cream, make sure the paper makes full contact with the shaving cream. This is where the fun messy part comes in! You take a piece of cardboard or a paintscraper and scrape the shaving cream off, to expose your pretty swirly paint! I also dug out the typewriter to type these cool reading quotes. Also used a heart punch from the one spot at target. I got in trouble this valentines day with the dollar stuff. They had stamps, stickers, letters, I couldn't resist!


#7 Shoes, everyone has a story to tell.

I don't have too much of a story to tell with me and shoes. Size 11 doesn't make that too much fun! But I do love my chaco's! They are so comfy. I don't have a shoe fetish, I have a slipper fetish! I'm going to do a future post on that.

Sam on the other hand, he has quite the story! He needed new shoes badly when we were backpacking in Europe. We spent our whole day in Switzerland finding the perfect new pair for him. We finally bought them. He still couldn't bring himself to throwing them away! He would drag around these stinky(they were BAD) holey, red shoes train to train, country to country. Something happened in Bari, Italy. He was ready to part with his beloved red shoes! I love this cute picture of him saying goodbye to his love. Sam's mom told me quite the cute stories of his love for shoes when he was little. I'll save that for another time.

So that catches me up for now! I have more to tell about my fun weekend last week, and the crafting that I've been up to. I think this is quite a long enough blog post!

Art Challenge

Just a quickie. So I'm not late for work at the scrapbook store! I'm inspired by Emily Falconbridge. She is doing an art challenge for this year. Easy, take a deck of cards and alter it, one a week. I have her link here, it's the embers one. Check it out. I haven't done it yet, so ladies it's catch up time, do 5 now and you'll be caught up. Hopefully I'll get some on here by tonight!