Bible Verse Cards

I have a few inspirational Bible Verse Cards to share today.  All these cards were made with Colorful Blessings Card fronts which you can find on Amazon.  All you have to do is color them in and adhere them to a card base.  I have been making cards with these fronts for two years now.  You can see my first post HERE.  They are so fun and therapeutic to color.  I always try to mediate on the verse as I color.

I usually use gel pens when I color these fronts as the designs are so intricate they are hard to color with any other medium.

Even if you aren't into paper crafting just scrolling through this posts and reading these verses is relaxing, especially during these difficult times.  I absolutely love this first verse.

This is such a happy, cheerful design!

The next two verses are also so appropriate for these trying times.

This is a verse I need to keep repeating to myself as I struggle with depression over what this virus is doing to our world and my own life.

And finally a positive reminder to us all.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

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How To Save Memories With A T-Shirt Quilt

Several years ago I worked full time as a manager at a fabrics and crafts store.  I worked there for six years and during those six years I purchased a lot of stuff!  I probably have enough fabric and scrapbooking supplies accumulated to open my own fabric and crafts store.  When I retired, I always planned on using that stuff;  after all, now I had all this "free time" to spend in the craft room.  But of course, the hours I thought I would have to spend in my craft room everyday was more like one or two hours a day.  Between cleaning, gardening, traveling, and home upkeep/remodel projects I really didn't have as much "free time" as I thought I would.

Years went by and I felt so guilty about all these unfinished projects gathering dust in my craft room.  I felt so overwhelmed by it all, that the joy of creating was taken away from me.  I finally realized I felt overwhelmed because the task was too big, and to make it less overwhelming, I just needed to make my goals smaller and more manageable.  At that time I had three quilts that I started but never finished.  I decided to make it my goal that I would finish one quilt per year.  I started with the simplest quilt of them all, and the one I had the most further along:  a T-Shirt Quilt.

Many years ago my daughter gave me all these T-shirts of her husbands.  They are all T-shirts of plays and dances my son-in-law was in when he was in high school and college.  The T-shirts are packed full of memories, some have the date on them.  The fabric on some of the shirts was so old it was fragile;  but once you iron on the interfacing it makes the fabric much stronger and stops it from stretching.

My T-Shirt quilt is a little different from most for it has traditional quilting borders.  Most are just T-shirt blocks connected together like THIS ONE.  That would be the easiest and quickest T-Shirt quilt to make.

I had a lot of T-shirts that had small graphics, so I cut them up to even smaller squares to make one block.  I put this block right in the center since it was so different from all the other blocks.  I love that my children's names are on these blocks.   My son-in-laws name is in the upper left corner and my daughter's name is in the lower right corner.  Isn't that awesome?  What a memory keepsake!

Now if you are a seamstress, you will probably notice how horrible my sewing is.  I will be the first to admit I'm a horrible quilter.  I so much more enjoy the process of designing a quilt than sewing one.  The mathematical precision of quilting drives me crazy.  I often thought I should stop trying to do traditional quilting and just do "Crazy Quilting".  I think that would be more my style.

Regardless of my imperfect sewing, I'm proud of myself for FINALLY completing my project;  and I did it all myself!  I even finished it myself with the "Stitch in the Ditch" method instead of paying a professional several hundred dollars to top stitch it.

If you're interested in making this type of a T-Shirt quilt instead of the standard style of just sewing the T-Shirts together, the most similar instructions I could find was this one HERE.  The pattern on this website would be much easier as it is only one border between the T-Shirts instead of the three borders on on my quilt.

T-Shirt quilts are a great way to preserve memories.  I've been collecting T-Shirts from every place we ever traveled too, and someday I hope to make a travel T-Shirt for myself.  I've also seen people use T-Shirts of sports teams or music concerts.  Oh, the memories you can save on a T-Shirt Quilt!

Have A Great Day!  Amy

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Grandma & Me: Our Mother’s Day In Lockdown

Happy Mother's Day!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day in spite of the circumstances we are all living under now.  It takes a lot more creativity to make holidays special when most of us are still under quarantine, doesn't it?  It kind of reminds me of the "olden days" when more thought and effort went into a gift instead of money.  I know in our house, we all put our heads together to try and make the day special and meaningful.  We were hoping for nice weather so we could go to a state park, but unfortunately a cold front moved in so we decided to stay home and do some fun activities instead.  

Our day began with an amazing breakfast made by my husband.  He is the KING of French Toast!  I tell you, no one can make French Toast better than my husband.  So for my Mother's Day gift I requested French Toast with strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast.  Now, I'm normally a Keto/Low Carb/No Sugar kind of gal but hey, it's not only a holiday but it's the apocalypse as well so why not splurge?

Alethea has never had French Toast before so this was a treat for her as well.  She did not know what to think when she saw my plate! 

But she dug in and gave it a try and boy did she love it!  She ate the whole thing!

The special treatment for the day didn't end with breakfast.  My son-in-law did the dishes and I opened my gift from the kids.  I was so happily surprised to see a pair of walking sticks to use on all the hiking adventures I take with my husband.  I did sadly remark that I hope someday again I will be able to use those walking sticks and we won't be imprisoned forever.

My son also face timed me during this time.  It was sad that he couldn't be with us, but it was nice to see his face on a screen at least.  Hopefully we will be able to be with him soon.

My granddaughter Alethea requested a tea party for Mother's Day so I purchased some pretty treats, and brought in some cut tulips from my garden.

Just like Easter, we all got dressed up in our pretty dresses even though we didn't go anywhere.  We made paper crowns out of glitter paper and jewels.

Since Alethea had the prettiest dress of us all, we coordinated our outfits around her.  I wore a blue/teal wrap dress from Stitch Fix and I added a white cardigan for warmth.  I also designed my crown to match my dress!  A Mother's Day crown must coordinate with her outfit, right? 🤣

My daughter Ashley made some delicious herbal tea to go with our sweets.

We had a lot of gluten and sugar today, especially for people who don't normally have it in their normal diet.

To our delight, the store bought cupcakes and tea cookies were delicious!  I've been so busy in the garden, it was easier for me to buy them than make them.

We're expecting a frost tonight and I'm praying my beautiful garden won't be dead by morning.  All the crab apple trees are just about to open, and all the tulips already are blooming.  I always get so sad when we get snow/frost this time of year.  It seems to happen almost every year too.

I just love Alethea's dress!  It's so gorgeous.  We let her wear it most of the day, and I wore mine as well (except I put black leggings on underneath to stay warm!) since it was a special day.  I kept my crown on all day too!  I was queen for a day after all!

The tulips were closed up tight outside, but when I brought them inside the warm house, they opened up wide.  I actually prefer the look of a closed tulip, but I know so many people love to see them open.  Which way do you prefer?

I know I was so blessed this day to be able to spend Mother's Day with my kids, as I know so many other Mother's could not.  I hope and pray you all were able to do something special this day even if you couldn't be with your families.

God Bless!

Amy

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