March projects

Good evening y'all.   Has everyone adjusted to the time change?   Is everyone ready for spring?    We just have to roll with it, don't we.    Glancing over at the outside temp, it doesn't feel much like spring, but I do feel rest assured that it will start feeling more like it every day.   It won't be long till all the beauty of the awakening spring will be all around us and we will, once again, put winter in the back of our minds for the next few months.   I can't wait till the wild flowers start blooming.   Even some of the little flowering weeds are just beautiful and I can't wait.

There is a lot of sickness going around and I do pray for all these folks to feel much better soon.    Friends having surgery, some have already had surgery and recouping.   Friends having lost loved ones and dealing with the pain of that, I pray for them.   Many prayers on behalf of these folks.

I have been working on a few projects this month and I have a few pics to share with y'all.   I hope you enjoy what I have been up to.   I have gotten behind on so many little projects to be posted, but it's all good.    It's good to keep busy, even if I don't show y'all when I want to, I will get around to sharing sooner or later. 

The above two pics is of my "Bits and Bobs" card and envelope.   The bits and bobs are pieces laying around on my craft area, left over from other projects.  I had cut cards with a honeycomb background and the little hex pieces are from that.   I used a butterfly stamp and then I found the glittery, blingy, purple (all of my favorites, yay) butterfly that sat perfectly over the stamped butterfly and then the flourish at the bottom of the stamped butterfly.  I used a tiny butterfly stamp and stamped a few on the little hex pieces and then colored them a bit.   I carried the tiny stamped butterfly image on to the envelope to tie them together.   Then I used some taupe colored half pearls in the corners of the card.    I really enjoyed making this card.

My atc (Artist Trading Card) is simple, to say the least, but they made me smile.   I loved all the little St. Patrick's Day images I had.   I put a layer of cardstock on each side of a piece of cereal box, then cut them out with my sizzix atc die.   I used a square check background on the diagonal and stamped it in green.   I inked the edges of the atc with a brown ink pad after I used a brown marker on the edges of the atc to color the white edges.  I inked the little image lightly with a brown ink pad to make it look a little aged.  I then pulled out some liquid bling (hahaha) and put a little glitter on this little girl talking to her best friend.   (She is actually me and one of my friends, hahaha)   She makes me happy, as they all did.   I made 6 of these.

This was my tag.   It is called "black magic".   I'm not really fond of the name, but I love the technique!   As usual, I always do my "own" thing with these techniques.   It is supposed to be white stamped on black.   I stamped my image in white on a navy blue tag.   I then inked the sides of the tag with a silver metallic ink.  After you stamp the white image on your dark cardstock, once the white has dried, you take color pencils and color the image.  I then used my white souffle pen to enhance the white stamped image and made a series of dots white dots all over the image, randomly.   I then used several pieces of threads and ribbons and looped them thru the hole in the tag.   I love all the threads and ribbons.   I really loved this technique.  I will be doing more samples of this.

This is my ornament with a church and a girl dancing with an Easter Bunny on the other side.   I am so loving these ornaments.   At the end of the year, my friend and I will have a year of collectible ornaments.   I am making them with glitter cardstock on both sides with a piece of cereal box in between so they are beefy feeling.   Then I use various sizzix dies to cut them out and punch a hole in the top for a seam-binding hanger with the year printed on a tag and stuck to the seam binding.

That's it for this go-around.   I'll be back soon with some more good stuff, so stay tuned, ok.   I hope you enjoyed what you seen here and I hope and pray that you make plans to join me back here again.   I'll be looking for ya'!

As I leave you tonight, I ask y'all, "To "whom" do you show gratitude, and for "what" do you show gratitude?    Kind of a funny question, huh?    Well, we show gratitude to friends when we know they care about us.   We show gratitude to someone who has done something for us when we needed help.   We show gratitude when we know that people have been praying for us.   We show gratitude to a lot of different people for many different reasons.

Psalm 138:1 says: "I will give You thanks with all my heart; I will sing Your praise before the heavenly beings."

Notice that David praised God with all his heart.   Gratitude for God's blessings upon David's life consumed him and he couldn't contain it!    He praised God continuously, regardless of his situation.   God wants us to love Him, obey Him, serve Him and worship Him with all our heart.    Who else do we credit with all the blessings in our lives?    I know for myself, that unless God allows it, my heart won't beat!    I know for myself, that unless God allows it, my lungs will not fill with air and release on a regular basis!    I know for myself, that unless God wills it, my eyes won't blink!    Absolutely everything my body does to sustain life is done because God allows it.   For that, Father God, I will praise You with all my heart, all the days of my life.   I praise You, Father God for providing a way to have a right relationship with you thru Jesus Christ!   I will sing praises to You!

Good night y'all, may you have pleasant dreams and a rest filled night!   God love's y'all and so do I!     Hugs, Patty