Synchronicity

Don't you just love it when things come together? You've been meditating on a certain passage of scripture, and then the pastor makes it a key point in his sermon that week. An unexpected check comes in the mail just when there's a bill that needs to be paid. You think of a long lost friend, and then they call you out of the blue.

Coincidence? The author Squire Rushnell calls them God Winks (and he's written books on this very theme). One of my favorite radio personalities mentioned recently that we should all stop calling them coincidences and recognize them for what they are...the divine hand of God at work in our lives. I'm currently studying Esther, and one of the main themes of the story is that perhaps we are all born for "such a time as this".

I happen to get excited when some of my favorite crafts or hobbies combine. For example, Gina K Designs released stamp sets last month with a needlework theme. Voila! Needle art and stamping combined! And then my favorite paper company, Cosmo Cricket, released a line called Material Girl that also works with the theme. (Although for this card, I used a paper from their older line, Honey Pie). What could be better?

I made this card for today's color combo challenge!

{recipe: Nana's Needlework Sentiments (Gina K), Aida Cloth stamp (SU), Label Classics (SU) old olive ink and cardstock, ballet blue ink and cardstock, barely banana cardstock, Cosmo Cricket Honey Pie paper, Martha Stewart lace doily punch, olive felt flower, red button, dmc floss}

Just recently, I was lamenting the loss of some of my favorite colors from Stampin' Up. Guess what? They're back! SU is retiring a LOT of colors (I used two retiring colors in this card!), rearranging their color families, and bringing back some of the favorite In Colors from the past several years. They're also introducing six new colors into the mix.


River Rock! Riding Hood Red! Pink Pirouette! Wild Wasabi! Baja Breeze! I'm a happy gal! Sure, there are quite a few colors I'll miss (Sage Shadow, for one!). But change is a good thing, and these color families needed a lot of refreshing. I love the look of the new Brights color family now, and I rarely used the old brights color family before. A fresh perspective is always a good thing!

Hey, did you know that two of my favorite hobbies combined in another form? Mystery novels and crafting! If you like this combo, too, then make sure you leave a comment on yesterday's thread for a chance to win an autographed copy of the latest scrapping mystery from Joanna Campbell Slan , "Photo Snap Shot"!

Blog Giveaway!: A Scrap Mystery!

Happy Monday, everyone! I have a fabulous blog giveaway this week. Joanna Campbell Slan, a fellow SplitcoastStamper, has sent me a copy of her just-released mystery novel, "Photo Snap Shot". This novel is the third in her Scrap-N-Craft Mystery series featuring Kiki Lowenstein, scrapper and amateur detective.

You may recall that I read the first book in the series, "Paper, Scissors, Death" last month and raved about what a fun read it was! The novels take place in my former home town of St. Louis, and Joanna does a fantastic job of describing the places and people that were so familiar to me. Each novel has a scrapbooking theme, and the chapters have great scrapping tips at the end.

I love a good British cozy style of mystery, and when it's combined with one of my favorite crafts...well, what's not to love?

Joanna is such a sweetheart! She sent me an autographed copy of the novel (published by Midnight Ink) to give away here on my blog.

So here's the scoop: leave a comment here on this thread telling me about a favorite craft or favorite category of book that you love, and I will draw one winner next Monday morning! I will close the contest at Midnight on Sunday, and will announce the winner next week.

Good luck!

p.s. Joanna told me that she'll be making a book tour stop next month at a library in Mooresville, Indiana next month. Any of my fellow Indy Hoosiers up for a road trip?

Out of the Box

I've been showing a lot of cards here at the cafe recently, but not a lot of projects. So today I decided to think "out of the box" and make a box instead! I followed instructions from Sunshine Mama Designs that were posted on the Gina K blog. This box was part of Gina's Release Party challenge.


I began by following the box directions using a 12 x 12 piece of card stock and scoring. Before taping the sides together, I stamped this lace doily design on each side (from Gina K's stamp set "Nana's Needlework"). I used garden green ink on garden green card stock.



Next, I made the box top using a piece of 6 X 6 Crushed curry card stock. Before taping, I stamped the edges in crushed curry ink (hard to see here) using a little lace stamp from the same set. Then I taped the four corners to form the lid.



I had some fun scraps of paper from Cosmo Cricket's "Material Girl" papers that seemed to match these images perfectly. I made a patchwork design on top of the box. Then, I tied the box and lid together using River Rock stitched grosgrain ribbon. I slipped on a little tag (sentiment from Gina K's set "Nana's Needlework Sentiments") that I'd stamped with garden green ink and dusty durango ink, then sponged the edges with crushed curry ink.

Fast, fun, and ready for gift giving!

BLOG GIVEAWAY!

Speaking of gifts, I have a really fantastic giveaway that I will announce on Monday! Make sure that you stop back to the cafe with coffee cup in hand!

Thoughts on The Earth

Today is Earth Day, and I have a big confession to make.

I am sick of Earth Day.

Let me explain. I have been recycling for more than twenty years now. When I haul the garbage and the recycling to the curb, there is now more in the recycling tote than there is in the garbage tote.

I haul my cloth bags to the grocery store every week.

I use cloth napkins and dish towels in place of disposable napkins and paper towels.

I care about what I put into the soil and what I put into my family's stomach.

I try very hard to be a good steward of the earth.

But at some point within the last year, I began to become uneasy with the whole "green" movement. It became apparent that our American school children knew more about "reduce, reuse, and recycle" than they did "In God We Trust."

Somewhere along the way, the green movement became the new religion.

We went to the Indy zoo the other week, and we were HAMMERED with green slogans everywhere. One sign said that if we'd all wear sweaters and turn our thermostats down, we could save the walrus, and there is nothing on earth quite like a walrus. Another sign said that if we'd keep our tires inflated, we could prevent the polar ice caps from melting.

Really? I'm mean, seriously?

We now live in a culture that tells us what cars to drive, what light bulbs to use, what to clean our toilets with, what appliances to purchase. We are hyper-informed. Every day, we are told if we don't act now! now! now! the earth will implode and it will all be our fault. What about the earth? Don't you love the earth? Don't you want to pass it down to future generations?

I had an epiphany this year when I read this verse from Psalm 24:1: "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it; the world, and all who live in it."

Newsflash! The earth is not mine. I cannot pass it down to anyone because it does not belong to me. The earth belongs to the Lord.

Where does the green movement fail? It fails because the basic premise is that we are in control. We must act. We are in charge of the future.

Guess what? We're not. We cannot make the sun rise and set. We cannot bring rain and drought. We cannot force the seasons to come and go. That job belongs to the one who is really in charge.

In Hannah's prayer of praise to the Lord, she said "For all the earth is the Lord's, and he has set the world in order." 1 Samuel 2:8

There is an order to the world, and God has set it in place. There is a balance. He has given this earth periods of cold and periods of warmth. He has given flood and drought, seasons of plenty and seasons of famine. He has given us this ebb and flow of life so that we will learn to put our trust in Him.

I'm not worried about the earth any longer. It is not mine to worry about. I may be a steward, but there is a King who reigns over all.

The earth is good, but do I want my children to "love the earth"? No. I want them to the love the creator, not the creation. If they don't know that this earth is not their home, then I'm not doing my job. Today, my school children will be bombarded by earth day messages. But in our house, we won't celebrate Earth Day. Instead, we will celebrate "In God We Trust".

The earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

{recipe: Tree Swing (Pure Innocence-MFT stamps), Cosmo Cricket Earth Love papers, baja breeze cardstock and ink, kraft and ivory Pure Luxury cardstock, versafine onyx ink, prisma markers, dew drops}

Sunshine and Rain

My Favorite Things had posted a challenge to create a card using the theme "Rainy Days". I could have used the little Pure Innocence girl holding the umbrella, but that seemed too easy. Instead, I decided to use this image of the little girl dancing in the rain. (The original stamp from the set Sunshinny Day has the little girl chasing a butterfly, so I just omitted the butterfly).

When I was a little girl, my German grandmother had a saying for those times when the sun was shining and it was still raining. She would say something like "Der teufel steckt kitzeln seine grosmutter." Loosely translated, it means "The devil is tickling his grandmother." Isn't that funny?

I found this translation in German using a Google search. More than likely, it is in High German, and my Grosmama spoke Low German. There may be some differences, but I think it's close.

(Last year, I was at a Sunday school class at church with a table of much older congregation members. Somehow, the conversation came to a point where I had to insert a few German phrases that I knew from my upbringing. One of the sweet gray-haired ladies giggled when she heard me speak, and said "That's low German!" I'm not entirely certain if High and Low German refers to dialects of certain regions, or if "Low German" was spoken by the farm-folks of my heritage!)



Here's the inside of the card, and this is a close-up of the sentiment:



What could be more magical than dancing in the rain under a rainbow?

{recipe: Sunshinny Day (Pure Innocence-MFT stamps), Fairy Girl (PI-MFT), Spring Sprouts (Sara Williams for MFT), paper from Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend, summer sun cardstock, bayou blue cardstock and ink, versafine onyx ink, prisma markers, amuse twinkles}

A Gift for a Grandma

Yesterday, I had to attend the baby shower for a coworker who recently became a grandmother. Yes, apparently grandmother showers are all the rage. Where have I been? Anyhoo, I decided to make a little grandma brag book with some supplies I had piled up in the craft studio. I had a small square chipboard spiral book and a scrapbooking kit from Stampin' Up (I'm Here-Boy). I sat down at my table, and about an hour later, I had a simple, completed scrapbook, ready for gift giving.

The pages were very simple. I just used elements from the kit and tried not to get too fancy.




And after all that crafting, I realized I still had to make a card! So I whipped out my favorite baby stamp from Puns From The Past (SU) and made this fast card:


{recipe: Puns From The Past (SU), so saffron/certainly celery/bashful blue cardstock, Delciate Dots paper (SU), sahara sand ink, scallop edge and square punch, blue taffeta ribbon}

I wrapped up the gift with an archival -safe pen and double-sided tape, put it in a pretty bag, and brought it to the grandmother shower.

Guess what?

It turns out, it wasn't really a grandmother shower after all! The mother and the baby were there, along with the grandmother, and as they start to open presents, I realized "Oh crap! This is a baby shower!" I'd been duped. What to do! I grabbed my present from the "baby shower gifts" table and told the mother of the baby "I hope you're not offended, but this present is for the grandmother!"

I don't think the mother appreciated it, but I know the grandmother did. :)

Rock Stars

Are we ever too old for rock stars? When I was much younger, I remember seeing U2 in concert. It was the Joshua Tree tour (I'm really dating myself, aren't I?), and I recall seeing Bono on stage and thinking "If I could but touch the fringe of his suede jacket..." Yes, I was a bit infatuated. But little did I know at the time that God had another man for me to fall in love with who was in that very same stadium at the same concert. Coincidence or God wink? You decide.

I don't get to attend as many concerts these days, but I still have my "rock stars".

Beth Moore is my rock star! I first discovered her five years ago, and after many bible studies, I can honestly say that if she walked into my house today, I'd probably be more than a little tongue tied and starstruck.

Tonight, my small group is starting the Esther bible study, and I'm totally psyched to be getting into the Word with Beth one more time. But there's more!

Next month, I will be heading to Grand Rapids, Michigan to see Beth Moore and her Living Proof Live tour in person! Truly, the excitement may be too much for me. Travis Cottrell and his band will be there, too, and they are awesome. I can't wait to sing and praise and study for an entire weekend with Beth and my mom and sisters along for the ride. What a blessing!

If you are interested in seeing Beth live or via simulcast, you can click on the link for Beth's website and check out her future events.

Happy Sunday!