Grungy Card 2

Good evening Y'all!     I hope you are enjoying this fine evening.    In my neck of the woods right now it is a very pleasant 71* outside as of 8:39 pm tonight.    I love it!    Up to 100* over the weekend, I'll take the lower temps any day!!    I still have humidity hair, and I guess that's not gonna change any time soon.    I know you know what humidity hair is.  

It's when you spend all morning with every hair appliance known to women to straighten your hair.   You get it straightened just perfectly and add a few perfectly placed little rats to give you that perfect height.   You take that one final look at your perfect masterpiece, just after you have sprayed a little hair spray on to keep in place.    You hit the door for that trip out town, just knowing you have this great looking head of hair.    You make stop after stop, just hoping everyone that you come in contact with notices your finely coiffed head of hair.    You have on your nicest smile, and you quickly smile at everyone you meet, but some of the ones you are smiling at are looking a little strangely at you.    Oh well, they must be having a bad day.    You sure hope their day gets better, you pray.    On you go, errand after errand and you are still stylin' and profilin' that snazzy head of hair.    Upon arriving at home, you walk by a mirror and catch a glimpse of someone.   You wheel around and run back to the mirror for a closer look, only to find that someone has replaced that beautiful head of hair that you was sporting so proudly, with a bad fake wig that looks like Bozo's head of hair!     That my friends, is humidity hair!    Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, don't ya'!    hahahaha

This is Grungy Card # 2.   I mentioned it when I put up # 1 the other day.

So, this is my Iris, from Crafters Companion, that I have shared a few times already.   But, I love this stamp and I never get tired of using it.    I stamped it on a background that I cut out on my Silhouette.    The image was created by Penny Duncan.    You can find her blog on the right side of my blog.    I love her designs.    I am trying to use her backgrounds more in my card making.    I loved the loops on this file and used them to run my 1/8th in grosgrain ribbon thru and I really liked the look.   You can also see that I added flat back pearls in the top and bottom corners.

After I colored the  Iris,  with my Spectrum Noir markers, I used my Sakura Gelly Roll Clear Star pen on the image to add a little bit of blingy goodness.   It's not real flashy, just very subtle.   It looks really nice in the hand.

I just used it more as a highlight than anything else, but it definitely looks nice.

I had it finished, I thought.   Then I took my liquid pearls and put a few dots of it around the loopy border and I think it really set it off.    The grungy part of this card is the edge of the bottom layer of the card.    I grunged up the edge with a shimmery mauve ink pad.    It doesn't show up as much as I wish it did in the pic.   Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this peek at grungy card # 2.    Three is on it's way shortly.

As I leave you this evening, I leave you with this scripture: Matthew 5:44  "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

In the setting here, Jesus had just called Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, to be fishers of men.   And a bit later he called James and John.   Jesus was going throughout Galilee teaching, preaching and healing the sick and diseased among the people.  Word spread all throughout Syria and people started bringing all their sick, hurting, afflicted, hopeless, demon possessed, paralyzed, and seizure ridden people to Jesus and He healed them.   Where ever He went, crowds followed.   So He seen the crowds and went up on a mountainside and sat down.   His disciples came to Him and He began teaching them.    This is where the Beatitudes are.   Jesus taught them many different things.  

Can you imaging being in that class, with the Master Teacher of all time teaching with "authority" of the Kingdom of God!    That is one class I would sign up for in a heart beat!    Of all the things He taught them, He also taught them to "love your enemies."    Can you imagine such a teaching?    Well, that's what He taught them.

Oh, let me tell you, it is so easy for us to love those who love us.   It is easy to pray for those who pray for us.   It is easy, isn't it.   Jesus asked them what was the reward in loving "only" people who love them?    The reward comes from loving those who persecute you and who are your enemies.   Jesus was asking them to not treat them as enemies, but to treat them as people God created, and as "potential" followers of Christ.

Fast forward to today.    He is still asking the same thing of us today.    I have to confess right here, right now, and just be very real with y'all about this.   I have not arrived yet at the place where I can love those who hate me, and pray for those who would persecute me, in the manner that is pleasing to my Lord and Savior.   It is a definite struggle for me.    But...I keep on trying!     I keep asking the Lord to help me with this.    I keep humbling myself in prayer and asking for help.   I struggle every day with this, and you know what, I know I am not the only one with this struggle.    It goes against every thing that we as human beings "feel".   How is it possible to get past the "feelings"?    Well, I won't get past the "feelings" on my own.    As Christians, we are called to live, based on what we know, not based on what we "feel".    Our feelings change, from one minute to another, one day to another.    What we know, never changes.    We know that Jesus Christ gave His life's blood for us to have a right relationship with God.    God never changes!!!    We do!    Our "feelings" change.    In essence, we should treat people based on God's feelings and not ours.    Jesus taught His disciples that all people are created by God, His own special treasure, His own peculiar treasure.    With that knowledge, we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.    Easy?     No!    Possible?    Yes!!!     God never asks us to do anything we can't do.    God never sets us up for failure.    When we fail, it is because we haven't called on God for help.    So, if you are like me, keep on crying out to God for help!     That's where the reward is.    When we are calling on God, we are growing closer to our Creator, becoming more Christlike.    Therein is the reward.    Becoming more Christlike.    All Praises to God!!

I hope y'all have a great night of rest and a wonderful day tomorrow.   Good night y'all!  Till we meet again, take care.

Ladybug, sweetpea loves you with her heart and looks forward to seeing you soon!

God Bless Y'all and remember God loves y'all and so do I.   hugs, Patty

Grungy Card # 1

Good evening y'all!!!    I hope y'all are enjoying this fine day.    The temp has been back up in the mid to high 90's in my neck of the woods today.    That is a huge change from the last few days, when we had temps down in the 50's.    Yikes!!!!    Get out the winter coats, no...put them up, wait a minute, get them out again!     Oh well, it keeps us on our toes, doesn't it?    We did get a little bit of rain too, while the temps were lower.    It really was a blessing for the farmers, whose crops were about to burn up.    Some of the corn crops we had seen were just about ready to start twisting from being so thirsty for water.    So, it kinda looks like we may be back to what is considered more normal temps.    Hot, sweaty, and sticky!    Not my three most favorite words, but as long as our air conditioner works, it's all good!    hahaha

I have been working on some new cards and I wanted to share one with y'all this evening.    How many of you have trouble with remembering you have supplies and all kinds of tools and things to use in your card making and paper crafting?   I am awful about forgetting to use some of the stuff I have.    I get so focused on one thing that I forget about some of the other things that I can be using.    So, for this card and a couple more, I tried to use more of my stuff and I was happy with the outcome.    I hope you are too.    I do have a tendency to get a little on the grungy side of life when making cards, but that is just my style.   Where a lot of people choose to keep their cards stark and pristine white, or what ever the colors are, I choose to use a lot of ink and smear it everywhere.    I just like the looks and enjoy it.   I hope you do too.

This is the final outcome.   I thought I would show it first and then show you the other three pics I took of the card "before" I added the liquid pearls dots to the sides and top and bottom corners.   In this pic, the flower looks blue, but in reality, it is the color of the bow.    But, I started with a white card base and then I added a lt. gray layer that I ran thru my Cuttlebug with a barbed wire embossing folder.   You can't see it very well.    But, I took a darker gray studio brand ink pad and then rubbed it over the embossed area of the layer.    Then I took my top layer and used memento black and stamped my magnolia and colored it with my Spectrum Noir markers.    Then I took a little bit of grosgrain ribbon and tied two lengths together and clipped the ends and used one of my home made glue dots to adhere the ribbon to the front of the card.

Ok, the above pic WAS the finished card until I eyeballed my liquid pearls and added those to the card.    I really think the liquid pearls added a lot to the card.    The flower looks blue in this photo also.

This is what I really love and it does not show up at all in the first two pics.    I took my Sakura Clear Star Dust gelly roll pens and went all around the edges and the highlights of the design.    It just adds such a subtle sheen to the card.   I absolutely love it.    It really makes me happy.    I'm gettin' my bling on!   By the way, this is the real color of the flower.    I don't know why it is blue when in the full front pics, but it is.   ggg

I tried to get a couple of pics at an angle to show the glimmer of the gelly roll pen.   I love it!    Around the edge of the flower layer, I used a shimmering copper ink pad just swiped over the top of the card ever so lightly.   I grunged up the edge of the white card layer, the gray layer, and the top card layer.    So, it is really grunged up, but that's what makes me happy.    I do have a couple more to share in the near future.    I really hope you like this card and enjoyed seeing it.

As I leave you this evening, I leave you with this scripture:   Psalms 147:3  "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

I LOVE this scripture!!!   It shows how God is at work in our lives extending grace and mercy to His people.    Read the whole chapter.    It is very uplifting.

Verse 1 says Praise the Lord.    Then it proceeds to tell why we can sing praises to the Lord.   He builds up, He gathers the exiles, He heals the brokenhearted, He binds their wounds, He knows the stars and has named each one, He sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground, He covers the sky with clouds, He supplies the earth with rain, He makes the grass grow on the hills, He provides food for the cattle and the birds of the air, He delights in those who have reverent fear for Him, He delights in those who put their hope in Him, He gives strength, He gives peace.    Every thing in existence exists because God created it for a reason.   Nothing that God created can cause God to have fear.   God knows no fear, because He created everything.

We live in a world of uncertainty.    But, it is not uncertain to God.    He knows all about His creation because He is actively involved in His creation.    He also knows there is evil in the world because we, God's greatest creation, have "free will".    In our "free will" we either choose to serve God or we choose to ignore God.    In our ignor-ance of God, we choose evil.   We choose to inflict pain on others.    That is a choice that we make.    We can not sit on the fence.    We choose to serve God or we choose NOT to serve God.    Back to "not sitting on the fence", I heard it said the reason we can't sit on the fence is because the enemy, the devil, owns the fence.    No choice IS a choice to not serve the Lord.    Since we know there is pain and heartache due to people choosing NOT to serve God, we know that God does heal the broken hearted and God does bind up their wounds.

I know that God has healed my broken heart and He has bound up my wounds.    I pray that if He hasn't healed your broken heart and bound up your wounds that you will choose to let Him.    Christ died on the cross for my sins and your sins. Sin is a word we don't like to acknowledge, but until we do acknowledge sin and confess it, repent of it and invite Christ to be Lord of our lives, we will keep on hurting and being hurt.    "Hurting people hurt people."   That's just the way it is.   I can speak of that with a "been there, done that" knowledge, because I've "been there, done that".    I'm sure you have been there too.    Or you may even be there now, but you don't have to stay there.    Change is as close to you as whispering "help"!    Jesus Christ is ready to help you, but He is a gentleman, He will not force Himself on anyone.    But, just as quickly as you can say, "help", He will.

So, I sing praises to God for the help He has given me in my life.    I sing praises to God for the help He has given you.    I sing praises to God for the help He is waiting to give to those who are ready to receive His help.    Thank you God for loving Your creation enough to provide us help through Jesus Christ!!!

Ladybug, I sure hope you are feeling better and look forward to the days to come for you.    Sweetpea loves you bunches!!!

I hope you seen or read something here this evening that you liked.   If so, tell someone.   Share it, pass it on, just don't sit on it.   ggg

God love y'all and so do I.    Till next time, hugs, Patty