I love frogs and my little boy looks like a blue frog sittin' like that playin' in the dirt. What a cutie- even from the back LOL.

The flowers are blooming again. The lilies grew really tall this year. We have been blessed with some healing rains. The drought had really taken its toll on the land and we have had timely rains all spring long. The weather tends to skip from winter to summer here with out taking time to nurture the new plants in spring. This year has been wonderfully wet!

Here is Pepper, a sweet little babushka doll that I made from a shared pattern from the Beaded Art Doll group I belong to. Her heart is felted wool on cotton fabric and a stamped then stitched face on felt. She is a very simple little doll and I have just enjoyed looking at her. Then there is this little orangutang that is not even close to being finished. He has a great face and then there is Pink Puppy. Every one has a fit over him. They are using the idea of Dot Lewallen. She uses or recycles unwanted stuffed animals to bead, she calls it "trash to treasure". Whatever it is a great way to bead for fun and not have to make your own form.

I have been blessed with lots to do and enough time to do it in. Have a blessed day!

Fishing for Souls

Taking an evangelism class at church challenged me to go out and share my faith with others. It is important to warn others what will happen to them if they are judged before making Jesus their Lord. The class equips you with a way to approach people and away to identify with their need for a saviour in an easy unoffensive way. Using a format that can be found at http://www.wayofthemaster.com/.

The picture to the right is a few of our members and a couple of members from another church. They are sharing tracts with each other and encouraging one another after an evening passing out tracts and ministering to people. The lady in the grey hoodie (I believe) is Trish. If I am wrong I am sorry but her link can now be found on the side bar of this blog or click here. I was greatly encouraged to share my faith and also to deepen my walk with God. He has been faithful to show me areas I need to grow in.

This was a huge blessing to learn a way to do what God has called us all to do. Not only that but it has been great to have someone there teaching you and guiding you while you practice-- Thanks Steven, Alicia, Jim and Bill, Chris and Trish (there were others tooo)-- I couldn't gotten to tag along with a better bunch!

Digging in!

The Lord truly works in some wondrous ways. He wants me to create some "prayer" books for the April craft show but every time I start on it I get lost in the word. Not lost as in -once lost but now found- but totally enthralled. Everything I am reading adds to what I have heard on Andrew Womack's audio teachings, and is further expounded upon by both my Pastor and my Teacher for the Gifts of the Spirit class. It is just like God to make things so clear and understandable, not to mention totally applicable. One thing that stuck out to me was the man who said, " I believe, help me overcome my unbelief." I am so there and am praying this prayer as well.

I don't have pictures of crafts for you but I do have something that is near and dear to my heart to show you. I have pictures of my family spending time together and working on our house. The first photo is a picture of the sign the Lord left on the house when the concrete was poured. I have posted it before but I just wanted to remind myself that it is a treasure and it is STILL there. The roof is almost to the halfway point. The boys had to move the rolls of insulation under the roofed end because we are going to get some much needed rain. Thank you God because the fish were dying in the tank.

I am so blessed by these guys, and what a fabulous place we will have when it is all done. Thank you Lord for your supernatural blessings-- great and small!

Spiritual food!

I realize it has been a month since my last post. I am very sorry I haven't updated you. The Lord has swept me away with two classes I am taking for Life University at the River. They always offers so many enlightening classes that I had to take one on Sunday morning and one on Wednesday night. I had been taking only Wednesday night classes but I just had to double up!
My first class was Prayer 101, it lasted for 12 weeks and we were assigned to draft a prayer from each one of the 13 Books the Apostle Paul wrote. The next class I took was a class that taught about Deliverance and we were required to write a prayer plan that would result in delivering someone from some oppression they were experiencing. The third class I took was Manifesting the Life of Christ. We learned how to identify who Christ is to us in a practical way and show His life through us to others and it was a definite lesson on how we perceive God and how we should imitate Him.
The two classes I am taking now are only magnified by the classes I had taken previously. I am talking about divine order. The class I take on Sunday morning is an Evangelism class. It teaches you how to use gospel tracts to approach people in an unoffensive manner and discuss whether they are good enough to go to heaven. It uses the Ten Commandments to reach a person's conscience and turns them to Christ who ultimately paid their fines. The class I am taking on Wednesday nights is Manifesting the Gifts of the Spirit. This is by far the coolest class I have taken. We are actively learning how to operate in the Word of Knowledge, Word of Wisdom and Discernment. We have activations in class that help us, in a hands on learning environment, experience the gifts. These classes are an amazing wealth of information and spiritual food.
I am learning so much that my prayer has been to ask the Lord to show me how to implement it all on a daily basis. I can even catch myself thinking about the applications of it during the day. Such as, you get a thought that sticks with you and you don't know what it means or why you are having it. I have begun to ask the Lord to give me a word of knowledge concerning this thing. It is simply asking Him what in the world it means.
I had learned that this dream I keep having is from the Lord. I started this one dream a long time ago and it is like I keep having installments or new chapters of the same story. Each time I am seeing something new but it is the same setting. I am going to have to go back and journal it so that each detail can be revealed to me by the word of knowledge (or is it discernment-- I am still learning).

Busy is not always a 4 letter word

Here is a perfect example of what I mean. I had this jacket that I bought at a pricey retail store and paid only 25% of the retail amount. It was much too expensive to purchase without such a deep discount. I was excited to have it and looked forward to wearing it too.

I had put it in the closet waiting for the appropriate season to come around again (I bought it at the end of the season). When it did 8 month later, I had discovered that a mouse had stalked my closet and used part of the cuff for its nest. I had never gotten to wear this jacket yet and I was soooo sad, but I held on to it. After discovering this post in "Plays with Needles" blog, I found a way to fix it and have it NOT look like a patch job. If you check out the post you can see why it is so inspiring.

My family has been overcoming an attack. We have all had the sore throat and stuff noses and chests. God's grace pulled me through preparing a lesson for our 4 and 5 year old class and we had a great big class. They loved the visual aid we were using to learn that The name of Jesus is the Key. And I could feel the healing that comes from creating and meditating on the word as I do. When ever I create, I have a one on one conversation with the Spirit. I share all my thoughts and even go over some of the word that I have had stick to my heart. I also hear his gentle replies to remind me to rest and not worry. So even though my body felt bad, I had a peace that passes all understanding while I worked on making tags and polymer clay keys for the demonstration.

Since then I have been on busy path meditating and restoring not only the full measure of my health but turning out beautiful results.

I was able to create this journal from some left over fabrics that were resurrected from the pile while I was hunting for the perfect patch for the jacket. I plan on creating a couple more journals with various papers that have cute borders and use more scrap fabrics for the covers.

Have a blessed day, and keep on creating, the Spirit is the perfect muse.

Playing around

I love to go to the local bead shop on Tuesday evenings to play with the ladies there. This week was especially uplifting. I created this little doll that I affectionately call my "Bag Lady." She was modeled after a tea bag, which is another story. ( I am not drinking coffee regularly- I am substituting it for a hot tea instead-- I just really want to drink something hot, not have caffeine.)Anyhow, being a teenager in New Orleans I grew to love those little old women who were often referred to (in a derogatory manner) as bag ladies. They were just people to and they needed someone to say a kind word to them. I was always more than happy to say something nice or even just smile their way. I ran free a lot as a teenager as public transportation could take you anywhere. This helps you understand the fun I had making this doll. The shop owner's daughter, and dear friend, commented to another lady how she had been watching me smile while I was dancing with this little dolls arms. Every one had to dance with her-- she is the life of the party! BUT she needs a better name!

Also while I was there, I decided I wanted to make an angel in much the same way-- different body but same mold and fiber idea. She is not finished but I also included a sepia photo of her peaceful face. She is more striking in person but I think you get an idea.

I have been so blessed by spending time with these ladies at "Bead Heaven."

On a Roll

Before I show you any pictures I have to tell you : You got out of the boat on rough waters, but if you take your eyes off Jesus you are gonna sink. I have to admit that I did, but when I looked back up He was still standing there waiting to tell me more.

Here is what He said about me. I find you are always trying to leap "FROG" (see what my previous post about what FROG is) I am going to stop that and just FROG-- after all it is not a children's game we play with our lives. This (Nov) BJP has things that were given to me - frog charms from friends and the cab I was given to me by Sherry Serafini when I took her classes the week before my birthday (in Nov).Having my birthday in November made it perfect to use those gifts. The background fabric was given to me by a fellow BAD member.

The other one Is for January-- I will go back and do Dec later, I already know what it will be just gotta find my pattern. I love this January piece! It is about the Righteous (in Christ) being bold as a lion. I am usually pretty bold until it comes to sharing Jesus with people. Our church is having classes about how to evangelize on the streets. Not being corny about it but really revealing "Jesus to the world"

The last picture is all of the tags hanging from a rod on the front of my cornice box. I will eventually buy a decorative rod and thread the key rings onto it and hang it on a wall like a picture frame-- one that I can keep adding to. The three on the end were the inspiration that called back to me to do the tags again. They are Jan, Feb, and March of 2008. March is the purple one with the picture of my sister on it.

Thanks for all the encouragement from all my fellow BJP'ers. It is wonderful for anyone to be uplifted and inspired by my work. It is truly a blessing to me.

Have a very blessed day and remember to (Psalm 25:15) keep your eyes ever on the LORD.