Easter blessings

Yesterday was Good Friday.  It's "good" because Jesus died on the cross for us.  I am so grateful for that and I look forward every year to celebrate His resurrection from the grave. 
This year, since my boys are getting older and don't do Easter egg hunts anymore, I had the idea to ask family members to send me their testimony (the story of how they came to be a believer, how they got saved).  I will print them out and put them in the boys Easter baskets to read on Easter Sunday and then I will put them in the boys' scrapbooks.  I have enjoyed reading the testimonies as well!  What a blessing to know that those family members will be in heaven with me someday!

Diligence

Have you ever realized that there are 31 chapters in Proverbs?  That's just the right number to read one chapter a day!  Today's date is April 12 so this morning I read Proverbs 12.  Boy, is it full of verses I needed to read today!  The main point I felt that God was trying to get across to me is to be diligent and not waste time.  I tend to waste a lot of time "playing on the computer".  There are lots of things I do on the computer that help me in serving my family and managing my home but most of the time I spend on the computer is just wasting time.  Proverbs 12: 11 says "He who tills his land will have plenty of bread, But he who pursues worthless things lacks sense."  Now I don't have a field of corn ready to be planted but it doesn't mean that literally.  I believe it's talking about doing what is necessary to maintain my life - food, shelter, all my housewife responsibilities.  So by me sitting at the computer doing "worthless things" I am being senseless!  I don't want to be senseless.  So today I am going to work on being more diligent with my time.

Little blessings

Today was such a good day!  Church was good and we got to spend all afternoon and evening together as a family.  I discovered some red flowers growing by the gazebo.  I don't remember planting them but they are evenly spaced so I must have.  No matter.  They are pretty and I'm going enjoy them!

Boutique style t-shirt

I followed another craft blog tutorial to make a cute little t-shirt for one of my nieces that lives out of state.  Her birthday is in just a few days!  Since I don't have a little girl of my own I take great pleasure in making or buying girly things for all my nieces!  I didn't take any before or during pictures but I can tell you a little about the process.  I purchased an inexpensive t-shirt along with some fabric paint, pin findings, tulle, and polyester.  I used two different sized sponge brushes (will use something more solid next time) and a pencil eraser to paint on the "necklaces".  Since one of the fabric paints was a velvetine, I used the iron to steam the texture into it.  I cut two different sized circles of each of the fabrics and used flame to curl it around the edges.  Using needle and thread I sewed a white button to the center of the stacked fabrics which sewed them together and then without cutting the thread I sewed the fabric flower to the pin finding.  I reinforced the pin with some clear glue and let it dry overnight.  I pinned the flower in place on the shirt and ta-da!

He calls me "friend"!

I would love to spend this sunny spring day working on craft projects and doing some decluttering but my daily life is so busy of just trying to keep up with the housework, appointments, school and church events, instrument lessons for the boys and so on.  I would also love to be out in the yard working on the flower beds, making them look all pretty for this season of blooms.  But all of this is not nearly as important as spending time with my Saviour.  I get so busy with all of this business and then try to make time for my fun stuff that I forget about reading my bible and spending time in prayer.  How can I have a relationship with Him if I'm not communicating or listening to Him?  I know He's still there because He tells me that He'll never leave me, so even though I've been away for a while I know He'll take me back.  What a faithful friend I have in Jesus!

Busy, busy, busy!

It's been quite a while since my last post because I've been super busy!  I did a faux stained glass painting for my little sister's birthday gift.  It took several days to complete but I finally got it done and was fairly pleased with the results.  I didn't tell her right away that I had made it just to make sure she wouldn't say she did just to make me feel good!  But she seemed to like it before she knew.  Anyway, here are the before, during and after shots I took of it.

I bought a large "hotel art" type framed picture from Goodwill and took out the picture leaving just the glass in it.  I took out the glass, cleaned it and laid it over a piece of paper with my template drawn on it.  Using black acrylic paint to tint regular white glue I traced the template to create the "leading".

I had to make up a new bottle of the black glue because the little one I started with got a big clot stuck in the nozzle.  It was much easier to draw the lines with the new glue!

Using clear glue tinted with acrylic paints I painted in the colored glass panels.  Once it was dry I put the glass back into the frame and super glued it in.

You can see some extra lines through the finished product because I used the original picture as a backing just to protect the glass for transport.  My sister hung it in her dining room and took a picture of it in place to share with me and it looks really good up on the wall.
Something else I've been up to lately is doing coauthoring on my older sister's fashion blog http://frumpyhausfrau.blogspot.com/.  Check it out when you have a chance.

Using scraps.

For Valentine's Day this year I decided I was going to just use what I have to decorate the house instead of buying decorations.  1) because we don't really need to purchase more decor that only I appreciate 2) and to save money.  So I made a few things from stuff I already had on hand. 

This is one of the things I made.  It was inspired by another craft blog I read but since I didn't have all the supplies on hand that she used I had to tweak it to suit what I did have and this is what I came up with.  I used a pizza box lid, a scrap of material, a stapler, a rubber band, 4 plastic grocery bags, ribbon scraps and a lapel pin.  First I drew as big a heart as would fit on the pizza box lid and cut it out.  I bunched up the grocery bags to use as stuffing and stretched the material over it all and pulling it tight I stapled it into place.  Because I didn't want to cut the material so I could use it again for something else I had a lot left in the back so I gathered it all together and used the rubber band to keep it in place.  Then I wrapped the long piece of red ribbon around the fabric "bun" and stapled the ribbon at the top of the heart so I could hang it.  I tied the brown ribbon in a bow and stuck the lapel pin through it and into the heart.  Then I hung it on the wreath hanger on the front door and admired my handiwork!  I was quite pleased with how all my scraps turned out for V-day decor.