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

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

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

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

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

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

April Bible Journaling Pages

So how is everyone doing?  We are still in lockdown here in Wisconsin and starting to get very discouraged.  The main reason for the discouragement is our governor extended our lockdown till May 26th without giving a reason.  We also don't understand why they don't consider locking down by county instead of the entire state.  For example, I live in the country.  There have been only four cases of Covid 19 since this began.  The nearest city is 45 minutes away and they have had only 24 cases out of a population of 65,000.  So why should these counties have the same lockdown rules as the bigger cities like Milwaukee or Madison and their suburban communities?  It makes no sense.  Again, as I said in a previous post a few weeks ago, I suspect a sinister ulterior motive behind all of this.  But only God really knows what is going on, right?  And nothing can happen on this earth without His knowledge or permission.  So all we can do is trust in Him and keep looking up.

In the meantime, I've been staying super busy with my garden and Bible Journaling.  Having four extra mouths to feed has added up to a lot more work too...more cooking, more dishes, a lot more cleaning than when it's just my hubby and I.  Right now, it's raining so I thought I'd take a break and write a blog post.  Although it's hard not being outside today, I'm grateful for the rain for it was getting quite dry in the garden.

I am currently reading the book of Job.  I'm in chapter 23 at the moment.  I am definitely feeling Job's  discouragement right now.  It's been years since I've read the book of Job and I have been surprised at how brutally honest he was about his feelings and his sense of loss.  Obviously I have in no way experienced Job's loss, but like him I also feel sense of loss.  I first and foremost feel the loss of my freedom.  I feel like such a prisoner.  I also feel the loss of wondering where is God in all of this.  What is His purpose in allowing all of this to happen?   I know no one knows and there are so many theories out there, number one being the soon return of Jesus Christ.  They are all possible.  Which one it is remains to be seen.  So often in life when trials and tribulations hit we can't see why God allowed it until it is all over.  I'm sure that will be the case for this as well.  

Let's take a look at my April Bible Journaling pages shall we?

When re-reading the old books that I haven't read in years, I'm always struck by things I notice that I didn't notice before.  I never really "Got" the book of Esther before,  but now I have such a new found respect for this woman and her courage.  

I colored the cover page of the book in pretty feminine colors for our heroine.  I just love this verse.  It kind of reminds me of everything I talked about above.  You could substitute the word "queen" for anything else and apply it to your life.  "Who knows" why God allows things to happen and put's us in situations for "Just such a time as this?".  I think of the master bedroom I felt led to make but didn't know why at the time.  It was to be made "for such a time as this?"  

This pre-printed page is a good reminder for us all during this difficult time.  Maybe I need to put this verse on my letter board (I have a letter board that sits on my desk.  I put a scripture verse on it to memorize and change it out regularly.  Right now it says "Don't be afraid of the enemy!  Remember the Lord who is great and glorious!"  Nehemiah 4:14.). However, now I am experiencing more sadness than fear, so it might be time to change it out.

I colored this page with a mix of pencils and metallic gel pens.

This page was created also with a mix of pencils and metallic gel pens.  I've been getting a lot of comments about my gel pens.  Not all gel pens are created equal;  some are really bad.  I use two different brands of gel pens.  Kaisercraft gel pens are great but expensive.  I bought my first set at Hobby Lobby using a coupon but they are also available at Amazon HERE.  But I also use THESE which are half the cost and absolutely terrific!

This cute pre-printed image was colored with pencils and gel pens.

I have been so busy in the garden that I don't have much time to create my own Bible Journaling pages and have been mostly just coloring in the images in my bible.  This one was colored with gel pens exclusively.

Here is a page I did myself.  I created a background first with gelatos then used stamps and my own handwriting for everything else.

Isn't this a gorgeous pre-printed image?  I colored it with gel pens.

I created this whimsical page when I read the verse "He is so good.  His faithful love for Israel endures forever".  It reminded me of an old song we used to sing in church "God is so good".  I hand wrote the simple lyrics to the song on the top of the page and added stamped musical notes.  The background was created with craft paint.  Everything else is a mix of stamps, stickers, and my own handwriting.

This pre-printed image was at the end of the book of Esther.  Here you will see what happens when I don't prep a page:  it bleeds on to the other page,  I don't always prep pages because I can always cover up the bleed through with craft paint.  But here was instance where I should have prepped this page before I colored it because the bleed through occurred over the scripture on the opposite side which I don't like and I can't cover up the boo-boo with craft paint like I could if the bleed through just occurred in the margins of the page.

Here you can see the bleed of that image in the scripture.

This is my favorite verse in Job.  I never realized how many references to Christ was in the book of Job before. It's amazing the stuff God reveals to you when you re-read books in the Bible you may have read a million times before.  There is always something new to learn no matter how many times you've read it before.

It's amazing that Job still praised God in spite of everything that happened to him.  I'm trying so hard to remember to do this every day.  Every day it seems we get hit with more bad news from my husbands job or something we hear from the media.  I must remember to praise Him in all circumstances.

I hope everyone is healthy and doing well.  God Bless!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

Ageless Style - Mother's Day Outfit

The Ageless Style Link Up-  The first Monday of every month a group of over forty fashion bloggers pick a monthly theme and show different ways of styling it. 

Hello and welcome to another Ageless Style Link Up.  This month it was my turn to pick the challenge and because the link up occurs one week before Mother's Day, I decided we should all wear what we plan on wearing for Mother's Day or "What we wish we could wear on Mother's Day" if we live in a state that is still in lockdown.  Unfortunately, I still live in a lock downed state, so my outfit is more of a "wish".  We won't be able to go anywhere on Mother's Day, but thankfully I have one child (and a son-in-law) and my two grandchildren living with me so I will not be spending the holiday alone.  We will still do something special on Mother's Day! .  My grand daughter requested a tea party, so we will still get all dressed up for Mother's Day to have a tea party!  And I am requesting the men in our household make us ladies a special breakfast of French toast with strawberries and whipped cream!

Since it is a Mother's Day post, I invited my sweet grandchildren Alethea and Atticus to join me.  We had to shop our closets for something to wear as we can't buy anything new right now.  It was quite the challenge putting three coordinating outfits together as they brought only a small amount of clothes with them when they moved in for the duration of the quarantine.

 I chose this navy blue tie front blouse from Stitch Fix to match the blue and olive in Atticus' outfit.  There is some pink in my top to pull out the pink from Alethea's tulle skirt, but it's not as noticeable as the coral flowers.

I paired my top with a white skirt.  I've never worn this top with a skirt before.  I previously styled it with pants HERE, and olive pants in THIS POST.  I chose a skirt this time because I thought it was more appropriate for Mother's Day and I also wanted to try this top with a skirt.

Because we were taking pictures in my hilly yard, I chose navy ballet flats.

For jewelry I went with pink earrings and a pink bracelet to pull out the pink in Alethea's outfit.

 



I hope wherever you live that you are still able to celebrate Mother's Day some way.

I'll be back after Mother's Day with more pictures of our actual Mother's Day celebrations!

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

And now, be sure to check out what the other Ageless Style ladies styled, and link up your outfits below.

Amy ~ Amy's Creative Pursuits Blog, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest

Bettye ~ Fashion Schlub Blog, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube

Daenel ~ Living outside the stacks Blog, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter

Debbie ~ Fashion Fairy Dust Bloglovin, Blog, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter

Jennie ~ A Pocketful of Polka Dots Blog, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Bloglovin

Jodie ~ Jodie's Touch of Style Blog, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter

Julia ~ When the Girls Rule Blog, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram

Kellyann ~ This Blonde's Shopping Bag Blog, Instagram, Bloglovin, Twitter

Shelly ~ The Queen in Between Blog, Instagram, Bloglovin, Pinterest, Facebook

Shugunna ~ Nzuri N* Simplicity Blog, Pinterest, Instagram

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