Collage Letter DIY Project

Last weekend I attended a friend's baby shower. One of the party planners had a fun Pinterest-inspired idea: each guest got the guest of honor an alphabet letter to hang on the nursery wall! Since my prego friend loves typography, this was a great idea!

Here's the "B" that I made.

My finished "B"

The Project

What You'll Need:

• Several copies of a printed-out letter the size & font you want it to be.
• A piece of foam board 3x the size of your letter.
• A kids' storybook, or whatever else you want to collage with. (Get it at Goodwill if you feel bad about cutting up a book.)

My "B" printout

My book of choice, since my friend loves frogs

STEP 1:
Tape your letters onto your foam board piece.

STEP 2:

Cut out your letters with an exacto knife and stack them and stick them together.

STEP 3:

Start cutting out interesting pages from your book.

STEP 4:

Start arranging your pieces on your letter.

STEP 5:
Stick down your stuff. If you're a modpodge expert, go ahead and do that. I'm not, so I didn't.

STEP 6:
Cut another letter out to cover the bits on the back and glue it on.

And you're done!

I put thumbtacks in the back so I could tie string on it to hang the letter.

This is what I called my "B."

My letter with some of the others in the collection at the shower.

It was such a fun project, and so fun to see it with the other letters—what a great collection! So many beautiful & creative letters!

A Recipe for Contentment

E.B. Pusey (1800-1882) wrote this "recipe" for contentment, and I read it on my lunch break today. I thought it was so helpful—and worth sharing!

1. Allow thyself to complain of nothing, not even the weather.
2. Never picture thyself to thyself under any circumstances in which thou are not.
3. Never compare thine own lot with that of another.
4. Never allow thyself to dwell on the wish that this or that had been, or were, otherwise than it was, or it. God Almighty loves thee better and more wisely than thou doest thyself.
5. Never dwell on the morrow. Remember that it is God's not thine. The heaviest part of sorrow often is to look forward to it. "The Lord will provide."

From Elisabeth Elliot's book Secure in the Everlasting Arms

Planting My First Veggie Garden

I decided to plant a small veggie garden in pots this year! I planted green onions, spinach, basil, green beans, and some flowers. It was fun! And the whole thing was only $20—hopefully savings for the veggies we'll get, but even if not, it's been fun. Here are some photos of the planting.

Ready to start planting!

Spinach goes in here...

Loved these daisies at the flower store!

My flower selections

Basil, all planted.

My little garden!

My flowers

More flowers in the pot from Mom B.

8 days later... the first onion sighting! Hooray!

The Long Leisure of Eternity

I've been reading a great book of collected short reflections by Elisabeth Elliot. It's called Secure in the Everlasting Arms. I love it! Here's one of the chapters I read today. It helped me to realize a new thing—sometimes lying down is ok, and is God's timing! I'm so glad we can trust Him to carry out to completion the good work He began in us.

In Maud Monahan’s Life and Letters of Janet Erskine Stuart, she describes the long years of waiting on God, and how He took nine years, “with all the long leisure of Eternity,” to bring her to a Guide who would “lead her soul out into paths of confidence and joy.” 

That word helped me to see that some of what I would have called my own stalling and obtuseness may have been the Lord’s own timing. He makes us wait. He keeps us on purpose in the dark. He makes us walk where we want to run, sit still when we want to walk, for He has things to do in our souls that we are not interested in. 

There have been times, on the other hand, when He wanted me to run but I only walked. Let us remember, however, that the Shepherd Himself sometimes makes us lie down. Some of the “delays” are His own choice for us, so we must not always chide ourselves when the pace is not what we thought it should be. We must learn to move according to the timetable of the Timeless One, and be at peace. 

“My times are in Thy hand” (Psalm 31:15 KJV). That is where I want them to be, Father. May I rest in the sure knowledge that my hours and days are safely kept. 

O LOVE BEYOND COMPARE, Thou art good when thou givest, when thou takest away, when the sun shines upon me, when night gathers over me. Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world, and in love didst redeem my soul; Thou dost love me still, in spite of my hard heart, ingratitude, distrust. Thy goodness has been with me another year, leading me through a twisting wilderness, in retreat helping me to advance, when beaten back making sure headway. Thy goodness will be with me in the year ahead; I hoist sail and draw up anchor, With thee as the blessed pilot of my future as of my past. I bless thee that thou hast veiled my eyes to the waters ahead. If thou hast appointed storms of tribulation, thou wilt be with me in them; If I have to pass through tempests of persecution and temptation, I shall not drown; If I am to die, I shall see thy face the sooner; If a painful end is to be my lot, grant me grace that my faith fail not; If I am to be cast aside from the service I love, I can make no stipulation; Only glorify thyself in me whether in comfort or trial, as a chosen vessel meet always for thy use. 

—From The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, ed. Arthur Bennett 

Slow Cooker Hamburger Soup

I invented this recipe as a mix of other recipes last week. It was pretty good! It was a good last wintery soup before the warmer weather comes for good. And you know I love to use my slow cooker so it all cooks while I'm at work!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
• 2-4 potatoes, sliced
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
• 2 onions, thinly sliced
• 1 c. frozen peas
• 3 small carrots, sliced
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 4 c. beef broth (I ended up using a combo of broth, water, and boullion cubes, based on what I had available)
• 1 c. water
• garlic powder, parsley, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste
• 1 c. cooked barley

Directions

1. Place ground beef in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble, and set aside. 
2. Place a the potatoes in a layer to cover the bottom of the slow cooker. Sprinkle the celery over the potatoes, and cover with a layer of ground beef. Season each layer with salt, pepper, herbs, and garlic powder. Throw in the carrots, onions and peas. Mix together the tomato soup, water and broth, and pour over the top. Cover, and set to low for 6 to 8 hours.
3. Close to the end of the cooking time, add the cooked barley and stir.

The Dry-Erase Calendar: A DIY Adventure

One day a few weeks ago, I was babysitting a sleeping baby boy named Joshua (given that he was sleeping, it was a pretty low-key task). On the table next to the couch, I found a book called Young House Love. And I pretty much devoured the whole thing (I had had big plans of bringing my Study Bible and finding out more about the confusing things I'd read that morning in 1 Timothy... but this book just drew me in). These Young House Love people also have a blog. Yes. Pinterest, here I come... if I ever have time to implement all of the fun Pinterest ideas.

Anyway, the book gave me a fun DIY idea: A homemade dry-erase calendar. So, here's a little walk through my project:

Step 1: Acquire a frame. It can be a more ornate, crazy frame than the one I got... I kept it simple. I didn't want to get too crazy with my first DIY home project :)

Step 2: Get/make a fun textured background. I cut the sleeve off of this Goodwill sweater from the $1.50 bin. Then I stapled it to the mossy-green cardboard background that was in the frame already.

Step 3: Make a calendar background. Make sure to flip it horizontally (so the words are backwards) before you print it out! This step is very important! Also, keep in mind you don't need a super-fancy/crazy font... when you paint on the calendar, it will look handwritten anyway.

Step 4: Print out your backwards calendar and put it under the glass from the frame. Tape down the edges so it stays in place.

Step 5: Paint your calendar onto the glass. You could also do this with a Sharpie. Or, you could also just print your calendar forwards-ways on patterned/textured paper and put it in the frame like a picture, too.

Step 6: Let the paint dry completely, put it all together, and voila! You have your dry erase calendar!

I also put a little basket there for the dry-erase pens.

Now I just need to get the dry erase pens! I plan to get these super-fine-tip ones (so I can write small in the calendar squares). And I also have a cool beans & chives picture that I can do something fun with in the kitchen, maybe.

And that is the story of my DIY calendar-making adventure.

Have you done any DIY projects? What were they? How did they go?

What is Worship?

I came across this clarifying definition of worship in the book Grace for the Good Girl (which, yes, I still haven't finished 8 months later... and if I've learned anything from reading it, taking 8 months to read a book must be ok). I wanted to post it because I think it's so easy for us to forget this:

 ...Like the Virgin Mary, who chose to believe the angel and remain in that truth, worship flows naturally out.

Mary did not have to work hard to muster up an appropriate response to the gift she was given. She did not wring her hands with furrowed brow, wondering if she was doing enough to earn the right to be the mother of the Lord. She did not look over her shoulder to see what the neighbors would think of her. She did not fake happy and joy while trembling with fear on the inside.

Instead, Mary rose up and hurried to the hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Action springs forth from the heart of a woman who has encountered God.

.....

We toss the word worship around in our churched-people groups, in hand-folding fellowship, in reference to the building where church happens. We have worship teams, worship songs, worship bands, and even special worship services.

It's kind of weird when you think about it. Maybe you stand side-by-side with closed-eyed strangers in too-high heels with hymnals or screens or drums. Perhaps you sing with a guitar in a house, sitting small and comfy on the very couch where you watched Survivor last Thursday. Either way, singing songs about sin and blood and Jesus and the cross is strange. If I try to see it all from the perspective of someone who doesn't believe in God, it gets me all messed up. Because it's weird is what it is.

We refer to church as a building, and we use worship as a noun: "Did you go to worship this morning?" Or, if we use it as a verb, we refer to the kind of worship that comes in the form of melodies and rhythms, with voices and strumming and notes. God never intended us to refer to church as a building. And he never intended worship to be reduced to a church service. His church is his people, and worship is what they do.

 When you're used to wearing a mask, you are comfortable with compartmentalizing life. Mask-wearing good girls put worship in a slivered-up pie chart, dividing our lives into segments of importance. We assign percentages for work, service, prayer, school, exercise, PTA, meal planning, bill paying, dog walking, toilet cleaning, church, and rest (if we're lucky). But the woman who has freely received the abundance of truth from Jesus abides in that truth as her very life. In other words, the lines of the pie chart disappear, and worship covers the full circle. Free women respond with worship in everything. It is a natural outpouring of thankfulness and awareness of love and grace and truth. It isn't mustered up; it flows out.

We breathe in air and breathe out worship. We receive love and extend worship. We embrace children, offering worship. We comfort, we laugh, we mourn, we dance, we read, we dream, we exist—all worship. We pay the bills, we run on the treadmill, we enjoy a good movie, we make dinner, we welcome friends with open arms—worship, all worship. We send money and offer prayer and sit with a lonely neighbor, in Jesus' name. We wait for love, we long for home, we pour out our hopes and fears and longing; we create with words and photos and colors and food, all beautiful acts of worship. 

But we don't call it that.

We call those things living. But when the Spirit of the living God lives inside of you, then your living is also your worship. What else would it be?