And I quote...

"Our love to God arises out of our want: His love for us out of His fullness."

- Charles Spurgeon

"But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners."
Romans 5:8

Sweet Feet: A Tutorial

My daughter loves this converse style of shoes, but she's not very good at tying her shoes. We've been practicing since Christmas, but she just doesn't have the hang of it yet. I like her to have shoes that she can manage herself.

I found these shoes at a thrift store for a few dollars. The laces were torn up, but other than that they were in pretty good condition. I washed them and was going to put new laces in them, but I didn't have any on hand. What I did have was some elastic and the wheels started turning.

I bet I can convert these into slip-ons! It was really fast and easy! This is how to do it:

Supplies:

Tie shoes

A yard or two of elastic (1 centimeter wide)

Scissors

Step 1

Tie a knot at the end of a long piece of elastic.

Step 2

Lace the elastic through the underside of the hole and pull all the way through so that the knot rests against the opening. Give it a hard tug to make sure the knot won't pull through the hole. If it does, just make the knot bigger.

Step 3

Take the other end of the elastic and push it through the outside of the hole and pull through so that it makes a straight line. You don't want the elastic be stretched at all.

Step 4

Tie another knot in the elastic so that it is resting against the whole. Remember, you don't want to have your elastic stretched out at all. Make sure the knot is big enough not to pull through.

Step 5

Cut the end of the elastic.

Step 6

Repeat this process until you've laced all the holes with elastic.

That's it, easy, peasy!

You Capture: Moment

The past is for remembering, the future for dreaming, but moments are for living.

Moments are fleeting. With each tick of a clock one is passing. You can never get it back again, no matter how hard you try.

Time does not belong to us, we are merely caught in it.

We should make the most of every moment, because in the blink of an eye a flower bud blooms, and then whithers away.

Moments evaporate like the morning dew. If you don't take time to notice them, you'll miss them completely.

What was new so quickly becomes old and rusty.

Chubby babies turn into busy toddlers who turn into skinny school kids more quickly than I ever imagined possible. I don't want to miss a moment.

We miss out on so many moments of opportunity. Opportunities to love, encourage, minister, bless, serve.

Each moment of our lives has been given to us for a reason. The moments of joy and pain both have a purpose. Embrace them as God sends them, knowing that He has a purpose for everything He sends your way. And make the most of them, because you don't know how many moments you have left.

"The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:7-8

I ♥ Faces: Angles

Here's my I ♥ Faces entry: Gemma at the beach last summer. She was literally rolling in the sand. It took several washings before we finally got all the sand out of her hair.

You Capture: Reach

As I contemplated this week's theme, reach, I looked at its definition in a very old dictionary that I cut up and use for collage (there are a couple of my collages that made it into this post, pictures one and five). Fortunately I haven't cut out reach's definition yet (although I have a feeling I might soon to use on a piece of art). Anyway the dictionary said: reach to attain, gain, achieve or arrive at by effort. I couldn't help but think of all of the things that we as people reach for.

We reach for physical perfection.

We reach for wisdom and knowledge.

 

We reach for a way to escape pain.

We reach to express ourselves creatively. 

We reach for individuality.

We reach for beauty.

We reach out to be loved,

and to the ones we love.

We reach for the stars, seeking fufillment of our dreams.

I've found though, that none of those things satisfy me. As I reach attain them, my heart is left empty, they're not enough. I have found only One that I can reach out to and find satisfaction.

When I reach out to my Savior, I find peace.

When I reach out to Jesus, all my needs are met. I am satisfied.

Artistic Endeavors: Collage Part 1

I've been meaning to post some of my artistic endeavors for a long time. I've tried quite a few different mediums but seem to have settled on mixed media collage as my favorite. I love mixing paint, ink, tissue paper, charcoal, pictures, and paper. 

Love

This collage features some of my current favorite techniques. I love finding interesting things to paint with instead of just a brush. I used bubble wrap, a brayer, chunky stamps, empty ribbon tubes, brushes, and my fingers in this one.

This also shows another one of my favorite things to do, cover a canvas in old book papers. Yes, I buy old books and cut them up. I love, love old books. I decorate with them, I read them, and I rip them. I buy most of my books at thrift stores for a dollar or two a piece. There is a library in my area that has a used book sale once a month and for four dollars you get to fill a large paper grocery sack with as many books as it can hold. The sweet old lady running the sale was amazed that I filled up my bag so quickly. I didn't have the heart to tell her I would be tearing some of those books up!

Bright Side

This is another collage featuring old book paper. The background in torn out pages of a music book. I printed the skyscrapers on very thin old dictionary pages. I had to secure those fragile pages to a heavier paper first so that the printer wouldn't get jammed. I made the clouds by dipping strips of tissue paper in a glue and water mixture and then coating them with mod podge once dry. You can't tell by the picture, but the whole collage looks wet to go with the rainy day depicted. This was done by covering it in several coats of glossy mod podge.

Swing

This collage is a good example of some of the different painting techniques I use. In the bottom left corner I dipped an old ribbon tube in paint and stamped it on. I also did a lot of painting with bubble wrap. The leaves on the tree are painted with bubble wrap as is some of the back ground.

This detail shot shows the impression left by the bubble wrap more clearly. I just dip a brush in paint and spread it over the bubble wrap. Sometimes I put several colors on different areas of the bubble wrap. Once its covered in paint I stamp it on to the canvas.

City on a Hill

This was one of my fist collages. I was going for a more graphic feel. I painted the background and then sanded it to give it a rough, faded look. The houses and trees are all cut from scrapbook paper from an old KI Memories line.

I plan to do several more of these kind of posts over the next few weeks. I'll have at least one more featuring collage, maybe two, and one for oils, one for water color, and one for acrylic.

You Capture: Quiet

Quiet. How do you capture quiet?  I took a walk in the (fairly) early morning hours in silence. No MP3 player, no chatty walking partner. Just me and my camera. I captured the quietness of the morning. But I wasn't alone.

I live in a rural community, what is called specifically an "unincorporated area". It's the kind of place you hear roosters, goats, horses, a cow, and even a braying donkey. It's not like people have farms here, most just live on an acre or two and have a few farm type animals. People in my area are also known for keeping broken down old cars on their property. It's pretty though, and it's fairly quiet. I'm always reminded of it when I come back from some larger city.

I took a walk around our 'block'. It was three miles. The beauty was breath taking, the air invigorating, the silence golden. The noise that I heard was mostly singing birds with an occasional car driving by.

Quiet is something I thrive on, something I need. It's something I believe all people need. We fill our lives with so much noise: t.v., Ipods, radio, chatter, phone calls...

We can't think because, to quote Dr. Seuss' Grinch, "All the noise, noise, noise!". Quiet brings clarity to our thought life. It can bring peace to chaos. In the quiet, you can hear God speak.

How does God speak, you might ask, what does His voice sound like?

"Go out and stand before me on the mountain," the LORD told him. And as Elijah stood there, the LORD passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper." 1Kings 19:11-12

He speaks in a whisper. He speaks in the quietness of our hearts.

We fill our lives with so much noise that we can't hear God speak, don't even realize that He's wanting to speak with us.

"Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

That's why it's so important to make time for quiet in our lives. In the quiet He speaks.

He usually speaks to me when I force my self to be quiet and listen. He spoke to me on my quiet walk,

What He said was between only us. But He'll speak to you too, if you'll only listen.

What does He have to say? Words of peace and encouragement, words of correction and conviction,
words of calling and challenge, words of grace and love. He speaks exactly what your heart needs to hear.

In the quietness, He speaks. Eventually the quiet is shattered. The phone rings, a car alarm goes off, a little person needs your attention. Life is filled with noise again and that's okay. Those are the things of which life is made of, but remember, He speaks in quietness. You need some quietness in your life and you can seek that out. He's always waiting to meet you.