His Holy Name {Challenge 7, King}

Challenge Word 7: King
God’s Attribute: God is our King or Melek. J.I. Packer says “He is King—absolute monarch of the universe, ordering all its affairs, working out His will in all that happens within it.” Ann Spangler then says “When you pray to Yahweh Melek, you are praying to the God who watches over the whole earth and who will one day come in glory to usher in an eternal kingdom of peace and righteousness.”

How does this affect my daily life? Everything in heaven and on earth are His, and He reigns over all. (1 Chronicles 29:11-12) Do you live as though God is the King of your life? Does your attitude reflect that you belong to His Kingdom? Are you honest in everything? Are you loving and considerate to everyone even to those that you do not get along with? We are to allow Him to extend His Kingdom through us instead of being caught up in self. And in today’s world, selfishness seems to reign.

Is your attitude contagious? Do people notice? Well, when you are living to extend His Kingdom, your attitude should be contagious! It is the perfect way to invite others to His Kingdom without pressuring them to believe. I will never forget when my postal carrier came to Christ. The first thing she asked me was “Now do I have to be bold and go up to people and ask ‘Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?’” I told her no, and then I asked her how I shared with her. Her response to me was “you started sharing by the way you live.” We don’t want to be pushy in bringing others to His Kingdom but we need to live it daily! As others see your contagious attitude and they begin to ask questions, then you can share our King with them in a loving way.

For my page this week, I used some older Heidi Grace papers I had. I dressed it up with some Memory Box stamps {Memory Box Co. Butterfly Collage E1060 and Memory Box Co. Palamedes Swallowtail D1057}. I then used my Derwent watercolor pencils to color the butterflies.The two scripture verses I chose for our word King are:
1 Timothy 6:15-16 ". . .God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To Him be honor and might forever. Amen."

Psalm 145:1 "I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever."

So, will you this week choose to live under His authority instead of rebelling against Him? Will you live to please Him and not self? Will you live to share with others and extend His Kingdom?

Remember to use the Keyword HHN09 when posting in online galleries, and to chat about the challenge, join us in this thread here on Splitcoaststampers. Also, if you have just joined us or need to reference the past weeks' studies, you can see this post here. Have a wonderful week ahead, and may the Lord bless you for the time spent in His word and for living for Him daily! Blessings,

Scripture Challenge 2009 {Weeks 13 & 14}

Are you ready for your new studies! Well, I have two more great words for you this week. Your words are:

Week 13: Protection
Week 14: Comfort

I pray you enjoy these as well as your time with the Lord! I know it was a great reminder for me to see how He clearly protected me exactly one year ago tomorrow! God is good! Please remember to use Scripture Challenge Keyword: SCRC209 when posting to online galleries. Also, please join us in this thread here on Splitcoaststampers for links to your pages and general discussion about the challenge words! I will see you again on April 12th with two new words! In Him,

It's a World Record {Blog Hop}: Ad Inspiration

Welcome to our world record hop!!! How fun to see over 200 people signed up today! Can you imagine all of the amazing pieces of inspiration you will see? Wow! The blog hop starts on the Unity blog. So, if you didn't start at the beginning, be sure to start back there!

Today I used an ad for my inspiration! As soon as I saw this in a catalog, I knew what I wanted to do! Here is the ad: And here is my card: I used the Unity Hearts of Old background stamp and the Unity Simply Said set. I used my Quickutz to cut out the flowers and wire from Hobby Lobby for my flower stems. There are not any patterned papers on here at all. It is all Paper Trey cardstock! :)

And before I end today, I wanted to leave you with one of my favorite quotes/verses:
Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

Now hop on over to Dawn's blog to see what she has created for your inspiration today! Happy hopping, and have a blessed weekend!

Hip Hop {Thursday}

Well, happy Hip Hop everyone! I am glad to be one of your first stops today! You should be joining me straight from the Unity blog today!!

Angela is releasing a new set today called "Floral Friends" by Lisa Hetrick. I wanted to share one of my best friends with you--my precious and amazing "little sister." We live about 1,000 miles apart, and it kills me that we don't see each other but MAYBE once a year! I have been blessed by a sister who I can proudly say is also my best friend. She understands me and still loves me even though I was her "bossy" older sister. LOL! She is there for me, and I am there for her. I couldn't have been more blessed! Here is a picture of her from 2004 with her twins and singleton. Yes, we both even have multiples, and our mom is an identical twin! I love you dearest sis!!!!!! (And thanks for letting me share this picture today!) :) Love ya!Isn't she beautiful? And aren't those the cutest kids ever? Oh, and you should see them all now!!!!! I will just say my sister is in grave trouble! LOL!

Okay, so up until this week, I had never heard of May Day baskets. So, in light of learning something new, I thought I would share the little 'basket idea' I came up with. This particular 'basket' is my absolute favorite water mug. I use it from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. I actually have three so they do get to be cleaned. :) Anyway, I purchased one for my sister too. I mailed it to her but I would have much rather presented it to her this way--in a little 'cup sleeve' with flowers.

To make the cup sleeve, I just sewed together some of my favorite pink fabric. Then I stamped on a bit of cotton with Staz-On timber brown, added a few buttons, and there you have it! The stamp I used were the flowers from the Unity March KOM Simple Life. I love how it turned out but next time I think I will make it cover more of the mug! :)

Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your hop. I am sure you will see a lot more amazing May Day ideas as you go along today! And don't forget to join us this Saturday for our World Record Inspirational Unity Blog Hop! For more information and to sign up, see this thread here. Have fun, and your next stop is the creative Wendy! Enjoy!

Tornado Warnings, Hail, & Fun!

I don't usually share too much private stuff here but I thought y'all might enjoy seeing what we went through yesterday. We had a HUGE storm go through around 5:45 p.m.! It had been a tornado and weakened slightly as it got to us. We got the bad hail though it had been MUCH bigger hail. My husband was caught on the road in it in his convertible! Praise God he is fine and the car is fine! It was a blanket of ice here literally! My husband said if it wasn’t for his traction control, he would have spun off the road. He thought the hail was going to come through the soft top and/or break his windshield. I can't imagine how scared he must have been. I knew he was on the road, and the girls and I huddled with the dogs and just prayed for him.

Here are a few pictures I thought you might enjoy. The first picture shows the storm moving in. The second picture is the hail coming down (looks white like snow really), and the third picture is the ground! You can see the difference going from the black clouds to the "white out" between the first and second pictures. It was CRAZY for sure! There is definitely never a dull moment here! Have a great Thursday, and I will be back for Thursday Hip Hop in about 5 hours! See ya then! :)

A Special Day! 20 Years!!

Today my husband and I are celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary! It has been such a FUN morning thus far. Lisa, owner of Create My Keepsake, gave me the idea to leave 20 Post-it notes around the house that contain 20 reasons why I love him. I wrote all 20 of them yesterday, and hid them this morning while he was still sleeping. Man, it was hard to hide 20 Post-its. But it has been SO fun watching him find them and read them. I have really enjoyed watching his face. And some of the things I wrote are not things I always take the time to tell him. It has really started our amazing day off just right!

I am SO blessed by an amazing man, and so thankful to have spent the last 20 years with him! I can't wait for many more to come! Thanks for letting me share, and I will leave you with our dating photo from 1986. Don't laugh too hard. :) I also leave you with my wedding photo (I don't have a digi one of the two of us). I also leave you with a picture of my great grandmother on her wedding day. You are probably wondering why I am including her picture. Well, I wore her wedding dress on our wedding day. She wore it in 1908, and I wore it in 1989! So amazing, and Happy 20th Anniversary darling!

Tuesday's {Tip} Bazzill Matches

Okay, "arizona dreamer" posted this on 2Peas this morning. It is SO neat! You will want to bookmark this one or add a link to your blogs for sure. It's called Bazzill Matchmaker. The site will help you match your Bazzill to papers such as Jillibean Soup, Basic Grey, Fancy Pants, Cosmo Cricket, Making Memories, Pink Paislee, Dream Street, Three Bugs in a Rug, Upsy Daisy Designs, We R Memory Keepers, My Mind's Eye, Piggy Tales, etc. It looks amazing! I haven't tried it yet but you can be sure I will soon! I hope you enjoy today's tip, and thanks "arizona dreamer." Have a joyous Tuesday!

Organizational {Friday} Buttons & Dew Drops

Happy Friday everyone. I am fighting allergies today so I am a bit slow and quite frightfully pale! Good thing I won't be sharing any pictures of me today. LOL! :) Anyway, I wanted to share two other ways I store buttons and Dew Drops. I have so many buttons that I really keep them in three different storage units. Now that's pitiful!

First, let's look at my cheaper storage. I know most of you probably have those awesome Maya Road tins around. Grab one or two! They are perfect for buttons (and many other things). I keep all of my Creative Cafe buttons in two of these tins. I keep the pastels in one tin, and the darker colors in the second tin. I label the top with my labeler, and there you go!Now this next wonderful unit is available at Wal-Mart for $19. I saw the idea on one of Leah Fung's wonderful videos. It does come full of spices and has labels on top of each jar. I just took off the labels, saved some of the spices (yes, I dumped some), and then ran them through the dishwasher. Perfect!Then I filled the jars with Dew Drops and buttons, added a little ribbon fun, and there you have it! So cute!Now, because I do keep my products separated by manufacturer, here are pictures of the tags I either put inside the jar or on the bottom of each jar. It works perfectly for me.I hope one of these storage options might work for you! Have fun, and as always--happy organizing!

Egg-ceptional Hip Hop {Thursday}

I hope you have enjoyed your Hop thus far! Today, you should be joining me from Chelsea's blog. If not, be sure to go back to the Unity blog so that you do not miss any of the specials or fun things that Angela has posted!

Today, Angela released an egg-specially adorable image called Love Ewe by Lindsay Spencer. These adorable lambs were perfect for my His Holy Name challenge page this week! So of course, I had to use them! This is a 6x6 page. I used my Copic markers on the lambs along with Stickles to highlight the trees on the Memory Box paper. Amos 4:13 "He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals His thoughts to man, He who turns dawn to darkness and treads the high places of the earth--the Lord God Almighty is His name."

Now before hopping onto Lynn's blog, be sure to visit the Moxie Fab Paper Crafts blog for your chance to win some stamping goodness! Now hop over to Lynn's blog to see what fun she has for you today. Thank you for stopping by and happy Thursday!

Unity DT Tuesday!

Happy Tuesday everyone! Today is my day to be featured on the Unity blog. I love playing with all of the amazing stamps that Unity has to offer! Yum, yum! For today's "feature," I created a card and a layout. For both creations, I played with the new Basic Grey Marrakech collection. Such fun papers.

For my card, I used the Unity March KOM, Simple Life. I "globbed" a bit of Stickles Frosted Lace on the center of each flower for some added dimension and fun!And for my 9x9 layout, I used several sets. The journaling tag is from the Unity March KOM, Simple Life, and the fish and sentiments are from the Unity set Beach Days & Sun Rays. I pieced the fish with Basic Grey papers to give them some more fun color!Well, thanks for stopping by and letting me share some Unity goodness with you! Be sure to visit the Unity blog too, and have a blessed day!

Tuesday's {Tip} Using Baby Oil/Gamsol with Colored Pencils

One of my recent articles was about Tortillons, Blending Stumps, & Gamsol and using them with your colored pencils. I thought some of you might enjoy the tips in the article. Also, since writing this article I find I am using Baby Oil more than the Goo Gone; however, both work great!

I also found an online tutorial by Diane called Prismacolor Pencil Tutorial that you might enjoy too. I hope these are helpful to you, and if you enjoy coloring as much as I do, then this is right up your alley! Have a joyous Tuesday!

Important Memory Box News!!!!

I have several Memory Box things I need to share here. First, I goofed in the subscription box I had on my new blog. I added a new Feedblitz subscription form this morning. If you subscribed to my Memory Box blog over the last few days, please go to the blog and re-subscribe via the new Feedblitz form. Please accept my sincere apologies. I am trying to learn Typepad so please bare with me! :)

Second, Dave is giving away FOUR $100 prizes!!!!! Each designer is running a contest between now and March 28th! So, be sure and visit each of our blogs to see what you need to do to enter!And lastly, the RAK winners are posted over there also. Normally, I wouldn't bug y'all over here on this blog but since I goofed the subscriptions over there, I wanted to make sure that everyone sees all of the important news and winners list! So, head on over to my Memomy Box blog, and see the two new posts this morning, and don't forget to re-subscribe! Thanks everyone, and have a joyous day!

His Holy Name {Challenge 6, Almighty}

Challenge Word 6: Almighty
God’s Attribute: God is God Almighty, El Shaddai. He is Omnipotent. He has unlimited power and unlimited authority. Nothing is impossible for Him or beyond His reach.

Almighty=Unlimited Power=Omnipotent

Ann Spangler notes that “El Shadday reveals God not only as the one who creates and maintains the universe but who initiates and maintains a covenant with His people. Shadday occurs 31 times in the book of Job and 17 times in the rest of the Bible.”

How does this affect my daily life? Do you try to solve problems on your own? Do you only take the “big” things to God and feel like you shouldn’t bother Him with the small things? How about those daily temptations? Well, nothing is too hard for Him (Genesis 18:14). And the same Almighty God who created the universe wants you to display His power through you even for the small things. When we rely on Him and allow Him to equip us, He will be glorified. All things are possible through Him (Matthew 19:26).

Maybe He has called you to a new ministry. Maybe you are scared and you think that you cannot do it. Well, if the Almighty God has called you to it, He will equip you through His power. But you must remember to rely on Him and not your own strength. That is something I have definitely had to learn with these challenges and as a leader in Bible Study Fellowship. But the blessings that come from it far exceed any feelings of fear that I might have had! His power is amazing!

Whatever you have been trying to do in your own power, let it go and give it to the Almighty God. Will you let Him give you His power and glorify Him through it?

For my page today, I used the new Unity release Love Ewe. Aren't those sheep adorable. And I used Memory Box Butterfield papers to create the scene. The verse I used on my page:
Amos 4:13 "He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals His thoughts to man, He who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth--the Lord God Almighty is His name."

Remember to use the Keyword HHN09 when posting in online galleries, and to chat about the challenge, join us in this thread here on Splitcoaststampers.

Let me end today with something I read from Max Lucado, “If your God is mighty enough to light the sun, could it be that He is mighty enough to light your path.” Let the Almighty God equip you to resist the temptations, equip you for ministry, and equip you through anything and everything! To Him be the power and the glory forever, Amen!

Scripture Challenge 2009 {Weeks 11 & 12}

Well, break out the "L" chipboard pieces, stickers, die cuts, etc.! We have two words beginning with "L" for our next two studies! Our two new studies are:

Week 11: Live
Week 12: Listen

Enjoy your study time, and please remember to use Scripture Challenge Keyword: SCRC209 when posting to online galleries. Also, please join us in this thread here on Splitcoaststampers for links to your pages and general discussion about the challenge words! I will see you again on March 29th with two new words! In Him,

Organizational {Friday} Save Space, Get the Ribbon off the Roll!

Several weeks ago, I shared my ribbon storage with you along with links to other storage ideas. Well, what I didn't share was that I had a couple of drawers full of ribbon rolls. I finally purchased more Cropper Hopper boxes and got the ribbon off of the rolls. Look at a drawer before I began: Now, look at the space I made in the drawer by putting all of those rolls into my Cropper Hopper boxes: If you look closely, you can see the three different sized Cropper Hopper boxes I use depending on my ribbon width. And yes, those rolls take up a lot more room than I realized. I also have tried storing my rolls on pant hangers like others have suggested but it never worked for me. So, from now on in my room, all rolls must go! LOL!

The specific Cropper Hopper boxes I use are:
Embellishment box (12 per package): my favorite size that I use the most of!
Mini Squared box (6 per package): love this size for my 1" ribbons; I use a fair amount of these.
Mini Cube box (4 per package): stores my larger ribbons; I don't need many of these.

**Please note: Cropper Hopper no longer manufacturers the Mini Squared or the Mini Cube boxes. However, I have found an alternative. You can see what I use now by clicking here. Thank you!

After sorting this ribbon and organizing it with my current ribbon drawers, here is what my ribbon storage looks like now: Isn't it just a beautiful rainbow? No wonder I am SO addicted! And I just love this storage method. It has worked for me for many, many years. I think this is the one storage method I have not changed because it works so well for me. Prior to getting my Scrap 'n Cube, I stored my ribbon just like this but in iris drawers. It works just as well.

Well, thanks for stopping by, and remember, if you have questions, please leave your e-mail address so that I can get back to you! Have a blessed Friday!

My Big News!

Well, I have been holding onto this excitement for a few weeks! Today, I can share! I am now designing for Memory Box Company! If you have never seen Memory Box products, then watch out! Wow, yummy papers, awesome stamps, fun jewels and pearls called "trimmings," note cards and envelopes, etc. Dave Brethauer is the owner of Memory Box, and he has written several books on cardmaking and stamping. I have two of his books, and they are wonderful!

You can see my Memory Box blog here. The name of my blog is Create x3--Color. Crop. Create. Yes, I had to include "three" in there somehow! LOL! It will be available from the Memory Box homepage in a few days. But for now, you can get to it through this link. I will be posting tutorials each week. I have all sorts of fun things planned for us to make!

All of my Memory Box work will be on the Memory Box blog. My blog here will remain the same with the same fun each week that you are currently used to!

And if you don't have any Memory Box products, you might just want to check out my first post over there because there might be something fun waiting. Also, next week, there will be a fun contest with some HUGE give-aways so you will want to stay-tuned! Thanks for letting me share, and I hope you will drop by and see me over there too every now and then! Have a joyous Friday!

Hip Hop {Thursday}

Happy Thursday everyone! Again, I am near the end of the hop, so at this point you are REALLY close to that blog candy! :) You should be joining me from Jimmi's blog. If not, hop on back home to the Unity blog so that you can start from the beginning!

We have several anniversaries and birthdays this month in our family! Wednesday is my grandparent's anniversary. Then six days later, my husband and I will celebrate our 20th anniversary! I can't believe it! I am so blessed by such an amazing man! Anyway, I wanted to make an anniversary card to mail to my grandparents, and the topiary in the Unity March KOM Simple Life was perfect for it! I wanted the topiary to "pop" so the rest of the card is white, and I used my Cuttlebug to emboss part of it. I pieced the topiary with Basic Grey papers, and then I used my Copic markers to color in the rest of the topiary. I also used my Glue Dot pop dots to make it stand out a bit. Well, thanks for joining me today. Now hop on over to sweet Laura's blog to see what amazing creations she has this week! Happy Thursday, and I will see you on the boards!