Green Clay

He seems to think I know everything.  He asks me about the dinosaurs as if he thinks I lived when they did.  
  "Could there be any still around, maybe deep, deep in a sea somewhere?" he asks hopefully.

He says he wants to go find one someday.  He will find the last dinosaurs because
"they really could still be alive somewhere, right, Mom?"

He wants me to help him with his dinosaur, but not too much.  He wants to do it mostly himself.

It is the fine line of wanting to help and wanting to let him learn.

 I show him how to stretch the clay and blend it in together with the fingertips,
"Ooooh," he nods and tries for himself.

He tells me about them, their names and which are his favorites,

like I would explain my favorite icecream to somebody who has never had any before,
too good for words.

I can almost see his brain thinking through his eyes.

He loves this part of life.

I try to grab that love and feed the fire of his imagination and search for information to satisfy his yearning.

I pull out my Bible and show him the verses God had just shown me a few days ago as I read my Bible.

"Listen, Levi, and God will tell you about the dinosaurs that He made."

I read to him from Job 40 and 41, about the Behemoth and,
Leviathan,
 his favorite nickname,

the dragon of the sea.

"Why did God take them away?"

He asks me, sadness in his voice.

"Well, I don't know.  They sound like they were pretty big and scary.  Maybe he felt like it was time to let man live without such dangerous animals."  I hoped my answer would ease him.

"Well, I wouldn't be scared," he boasted.

"I wish they were still around."

I had to admit that this was one instance where I disagreed with him,

but understood his pain at the small resource of knowledge he had for the thing he loved most.

One thing I knew, I admired his love for life and fire to know.
"Someday, Levi, maybe you can go out and find out more about dinosaurs,"
I reassured him, as I saw the twinkle in his eyes.

"And you can come home and teach me."

Letting It Go.

I have the same problem as she does.

 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

My father is a giving person.  I can remember going out with him to the mini-market when I was a child, and he would let my older sister and I pick out a favorite snack...a little bag of pistachios, a brownie in a package, an ice cream sandwich.  He would often come home with a little trinket of some kind for us.  He showed his love by giving us little things to let us know he was thinking about us.

I kept those trinkets, those reminders that my dad loves me.  It was very hard for me to imagine just throwing them away.  I kept letters and notes from friends.  I kept the little bookmarks I had received in classrooms and Bible school.  I kept my childhood stuffed animals.  "Things" symbolized memories to me.

Thankfully, I had a mother who threw things in the trash, usually when I was out.  I think I would have filled the whole house if she didn't.  Even still, I had boxes and boxes of stuff when I married.  My husband refused to be buried in the boxes and helped me weed through what I didn't need.  It was incredibly hard for me, so I picked out the 5 or so things that really meant the most to me from my dad, handed my husband the garbage bag, and let a few tears fall as he pitched my stuff into the darkness of the bag.  I was afraid I'd feel the calls of my things, like the Velveteen rabbit I'd read about in my childhood storybook.  But I didn't.  In fact, it was just the opposite.  I felt relieved.

Stuff is just that: stuff.  Certainly, there are important things and heirlooms.  Some things carry history with them, like my husband's wooden butter mold that was his great grandmother's,

 

the ring that was his grandfather's,

my great grandmother's platter.

 Some things are just too dear and sentimental, like the little box that holds the sweet letters kept by my husband's grandfather to and from his grandmother, as well as pictures of when they were young.

There's the little iron cart and horse that is one of the only things I have from my grandmother and
the handmade cabin my husband's grandfather made.

But it took me some years to realize that many of the memories we have are just as valuable as they are.  The little trinkets that come along the way are not always necessary for the memories, unless their value or beauty is worth keeping around to take up the space they use in our homes.

It is a lesson I am now trying to teach to my daughter.  She keeps the packaging from toys, pamphlets with horses on them, old stickers she has peeled up too many times for them to stick anymore.

 She cries when things get thrown away, or worse yet, she digs them out of the trash when I'm not looking, and I wonder how these things keep coming back.  She holds onto things like her mother used to, and I want to spare her from that trouble.  I struggle with hurting her feelings, but wanting her to learn to...
let go.

Letting go is a worthwhile ability to master as much as appreciating and treasuring things. Sometimes it is a step of courage and an act of betterment.  It almost brings a breeze of fresh air into the soul.  But for those of us who make every favorite moment into a treasure we want to physically hold, it can be hard...really hard.  I find myself fighting the "but what if I need this...what if someday I can't buy this item again...what if..." shadowed by the two or three times when it actually happened that I needed the tossed item and had to go searching for a new one.  But I have to tell myself: the weight of all the things I have let go and not needed is far superior to those handful of times when I have missed them.  The fragile precipice of needing and appreciating things stands incredibly close to the pitfall of being in bondage to the things we live with.  Finding that line is a tricky thing to learn, and an even more difficult one to teach.  A cozy home is often one rich with beautiful, meaningful things, but also one that is not cluttered with unimportant stuff...
or worse yet, junk.

  In a funny way, that transfers over into all of life: learning what is truly important ("love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" Galatians 5:2-23a) and letting go and giving to God the things we cannot control and the things that would weigh us down ("all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings." I Peter 2:1).

And so I try to help her...by weeding through my closet and getting rid of things I don't wear or need, rummaging out the cupboards full of dishware stacks that will never see the armies they could feed, letting go of craft supplies for entire classrooms of 30 kids rather than the three whose eyeballs peer over their books into mine, relinquishing old trinkets and stuff that just clutters up the house while appreciating and caring for the things that are found to be worthy of some space. 

The gift that goes on giving in life isn't always one that keeps.  Sometimes, by letting go and giving up those things we have been collecting for the dust and spiders to web up, we are releasing blessings waiting to be transferred to the hands that actually need them.

It is a journey we are on,
and we are stumbling through it together.




(We all have certain love languages...ways we express love, ways we feel loved.  Sometimes, that helps us see why we expect love in certain measures; or why we feel disappointed if those expectations are not met.  It is helpful to face these expectations.  Here is a great place to see what your love language is: www.5lovelanguages.com  Surprisingly, mine turned out to be "words of affirmation" rather than "receiving gifts" as the person inside of me would have thought, what with having a hard time letting go of things.  But I guess we all need a bit of all the love languages anyhow, don't ya' think?  The test is a fun one to take to figure out your own.)



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The Birthday, The Paint, The Whereabouts of PPP

Somehow or another, in between gingerbread house creations, Christmas ornaments, and too many toys that fell to their death on the floor where Spot found them and mutilated them into sad masses of torn material and drifting white fluff; somehow, the end of the year snuck up and disappeared into the dark, cold night.

I have not been on here much since then.  I celebrated a birthday this year that sent me into the decade everybody calls middle age; you know, the one that pretty much makes you think you've lived about half of your life...and I realized how quickly the first half went.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to say I've been drowning myself in tears using box after box of tissues.  Quite the contrary.  I don't feel much older than I did a decade or so ago.  In fact, I like this stage of my life.  I don't worry about so many of the superficial things I did when I was 20...no more hours spent on getting my hair perfectly curled and sprayed into submission.  I don't worry about what everybody thinks of me anymore...I figure they'll get it straight eventually, and if not, perhaps there's somethings more I can learn...or change...nobody's ever perfect and we all learn along the way; or just agree to disagree.  Life isn't such a drama...well, most of the time.  (I'm sure my Farmer wouldn't always agree with this summation of my so-far life, but if he knew me when I was 18...)

But one thing did especially trouble me.

I began praying pretty steadily, asking God what it was He wanted for me in the next stage of life.  He didn't answer me immediately, which is never very much to my liking.  I like to know things right away, so I can plan and pursue.  The heat of a new direction always spurs me on with the most momentum, and I wanted to utilize that enthusiasm.  But as the days passed, I still wasn't getting any peace in my tumultuous thoughts.  I wanted to do something productive and worthwhile, but something that would enhance my duties at home and with my kids.  That's a hard bill to fill.


Before Christmas, I was asked to make some wildlife ornaments for the cemetery where my husband works.  They were decorating a Christmas tree in honor of a celebration at the Orianda House, a beautiful old mansion in the Baltimore area. 

Baltimoreheritage.org: Image courtesy laura1119_photos/photobucket

I was a bit unsure about painting the ornaments which were to feature the wildlife seen in the cemetery as well as some of the trees there.

I started by base-coating the bulbs, because when I washed them with alcohol,

as is helpful to do before painting on glass,

the finish that was on the bulbs washed off.

I printed up some images from the internet.

(Thank you, kind people who posted pictures of these creatures on the internet!)

I then sketched with charcoal pencil in the shape of the images with a little bit of detail

to use as a guide when I applied paint.

I then etched in the fine detail with permanent calligraphy ink and my fine-tipped calligraphy pen.

I used Martha Stewart's all purpose paint for the color.



 

I realized as I was painting,

this is what I love.

It was challenging, but it was fun.

I asked God, "Is there a way you could use this somehow?
I have never felt like I am a fantastic artist, but I do love doing art
and using it in my home to fix things up."

I still felt as if I didn't know what God wanted for me,

I just knew that what I have been doing,

the different little things that seem to take me from my children,

were frustrating me and making me feel like I was missing out on them.

Creating small crafts for local Christmas craft sales was fun,
but the profit margin was so slim compared to how much time it was taking me away
from my kids, my house, my necessary work.

Not long after these thoughts were bumping around in my head,
I got an email from a friend asking me about possibly helping her daughter with her drawings,

maybe some tips to help her.

I have had several people tell me that their kids like to try out some of the crafts I have made

or the art lessons I give on my blog.

I used to teach a craft class for a few years at the camp where my father ministers,

and I taught art to a group of home-schoolers before I married and while my husband was in Iraq,

but since I had my children spread out in larger gaps of years

and have other responsibilities with my small plant nursery and craft sales,

the thought of throwing in the art classes was too much.

But I loved them when I did them.

I also helped teach a Bible study for kids
and enjoyed making the art pages for the kids to work on.

Memory verses are more fun to learn when there is a picture to color
or help one remember.

I got up from the computer and sat down at the table to give my daughter's schooling to her.

I opened her art book up and read through the lesson she was to be taught

and then the art project I had for her that we needed to finish...

and it hit me.

Perhaps I should start a blog where I could teach some art tips,

make time to work on art goals that I have had my whole life,
create memory verse pages or coloring books for kids,
and share home projects I have done for the older readers as well.

I would be reaching for the things I see as important now

instead of putting them off til next year...

or next decade...

or when my kids are grown...

or when I'm retired.

 I love this blog, and all that I have been able to share here,

but sometimes I think my mind gets jumbled with what to do best with the time I have.

I don't want to let this blog go:

I love to write the bits and pieces of my life on this virtual diary.

I just think it is time to create a more specific place

to fill in a gap that may be needing some specific colors of paint.

I am not the most knowledgeable or masterful artist,

and sometimes I think that that is what holds us back from pursuing our best for God,

our own selves questioning our abilities, fearing the possibility of failure or inadequacy,

 like Moses did in Exodus 4: 10-12,

"And Moses said unto the LORD,

O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant:

but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth?

or who maketh the dumb,

or deaf,

or the seeing,

or the blind?

have not I the LORD?

Now therefore go,

and I will be with thy mouth,

and teach thee what thou shalt say."

So that is where I have been...
and I've been afraid to share it,
because commitment and change always scares me a little.


I haven't forgotten you and I cannot tell you how amazed I am that you come by
to hear my ramblings at this place.
Thank you.
It is amazing to me that so many friends are people I have never met.

I will still come here to write
although probably not as much as I had in the past.

(I need this place to type out the wordy versions of my life's lessons.)

That is where I have been,
heaping up mounds of art sketches and ideas,
sketching out pictures onto verse pages,
creating artwork around the house,
taking pictures,
trying to figure out exactly how and with what kind of schedule and plans I aim to go,
trying to get this half-painted bathroom from 6 months ago finally finished,
cleaning up after 3 kids, 2 dogs, and 1 cat stuck in a house all winter,
and praying that God will use the second half of my life,
if He blesses me with such,
with His guidance
and lots of colorful pails of paint.
 

Simple Ways: Stucco and Silver

I just mistook self-tanning cream
for hair conditioner.
I kept wondering why the tangles were not loosening from my wet hair.

Yes, it has been that sort of Monday:

Phone tag
(why is it people realize they need hay delivered on Mondays,
and need it NOW),
puppy disasters in the form of holes dug right outside the doorway
same place, same mud pit as last Friday,
as well as chewed up items that I will not mention but that made me gasp and then screech
which sent him running out the back door;
home-schooling frustrations regarding division
(and I thought I disliked division the first time around;
teaching it to a child who wants to skip as many steps as possible,
no matter how many times I reinforce that all steps are necessary,
well, let's just say 'challenging' is putting it mildly,
like calling a severed finger a hang nail that has gotten out of control);
cooking atrocities compounded by substituting wrong ingredients;
stepping in evidence that the chickens have been sneaking up on the porch again...

with my socked foot.


Yes, that sort of Monday.


I had great plans of posting a great story of a great lesson I had learned,
but I lost it somewhere,
I think between my toes.


So, rather than wax wordy about things that have been lost upon my tangled brain,
I will post a simple project,
in the hopes that simplicity will return to Tuesday,
(although that wind whipping outside just now sounds like it is a bit flustered by Monday as well.)



I had a little box,
nothing would it hold.

Actually, it was a cute little box I got at a yard sale or somewhere for a quarter or so.

I decided to use it as a sort of pedestal on my mantel for an old bird I found,
so I spray painted it with some silver spray paint,

and then mixed up some plaster of Paris into some white paint,

good and thick, mind you,

like mashed potatoes, or angel food cake frosting,

or something else unfood-like so I'll stop making myself hungry.

I taped a favorite stencil I had made from an image at the Graphics Fairy

and used on my living room cupboard.

I like to use Frog Tape for this because it holds VERY well,

but it doesn't pull up any of the paint with it.

I painted this thick as frosting paint onto the stencil

and carefully pulled it up,

wiping it after each use
before moving it around the box.

There were minor smears,

but perfection is not always worth the difficulty of attaining it on some things,

or so I tell myself.

It adds just a bit of different height to the mantel,
a sweet perch for the bird in her nest.


Perhaps I will fasten the troubles of Monday on her wings and let her fly away...

But now I'll go get some tea and sit by the woodstove and listen to the wind...

and ignore that puppy snoring on the couch,

and try to focus on the season,

realizing that many have faced annoyances and much greater frustrations,
a part of life for all of us on earth.


"And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea,
unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife,
 being great with child."

Luke 2: 4- 5

Yes, I have little to complain of...

and so I'll say,

'Goodnight.'



Linking up to:
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funkyjunkinteriors.net

Bedifferentactnormal.com 

Graphicsfairy
Nominimalisthere
Cedarhill-ranch.com
Todayscreativeblog.net

A Sugar Bowl Full of Christmas Tree

My Christmas this year is a bit of a challenge

with a 3 year old who is intent on involving herself in every project I attempt

and a puppy who presumes he should do the same.

Do you know how many shredded bits of snowy stuffing I have picked up off the floor,

never knowing which one of the two has done it.

I realized yesterday after picking up the same five pieces on the living room floor about five times

that the puppy was watching me throw it into the trash can

and removing it as soon as I walked away.

So you can see why I decided to concentrate on the fireplace mantel.

I found a silver creamer and sugar bowl for about $1 at a yard sale,

probably because the lid was missing from the sugar bowl.

Wanting to do something with them,

I found cardboard cones left-over from thread I had used up.

(if you don't have a cone, one can be made by wrapping posterboard or heavy cardstock into a cone shape

or

there is a great cone pattern from Danielle's Place of Crafts and Activities

under her Feathered Christmas Tree Craft for Kids.

(This website has lots of GREAT craft ideas as well as actual lessons

 for Sunday School or home-schooling.

Be sure to check it out!)

I also grabbed some brown wool my sister-in-law had given me from her sheep,

a toilet paper roll,

my glue gun,

and some moss ribbon.

I started by covering what would become the trunk of my tree,

the toilet paper roll,

with the brown wool.

One could substitute anything for this:

a piece of felt,

burlap,

or just paint it brown.

Next I put some glue on the end

and sat it into the sugar bowl.

The glue from the glue gun did not want to hold it,

so I put a ring around it inside of the sugar bowl as well.

E6000 glue might work for a more permanent hold,

but I wasn't too concerned about it holding fast in case I want to use the sugar and creamer for something else.

I put some white wool around the bottom of it to fill in the sugar bowl

and give a snowy look.

Covering the cone was fun.

There were so many variations that could be done:

jute or heavy jute,

feathers

or

music paper,

yarn, lace, burlap, velvet, flannel,

fun patterned material;

it's endless, really.

But I had purchased some artificial moss last spring,

and thought it would add some variety to the white trees on my mantel.

Glue-gunning worked well for this.

This was an easy craft
that was finished in a small amount of time.







And they are safe up where no little hands or paws can reach them...


I hope.



Linking up to:
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Cedarhill-ranch.com

funkyjunkinteriors.net

Todayscreativeblog.net 

Somewhat Simple, A Crafty Soiree at Yesterday on Tuesday, Thursday Favorite Things at Katherines Corner, Link Party at Centsational Girl, Inspiration Friday At The Picket Fence, The Best Christmas and DIY Crafts Ever at The Nesting Place, Link Party at Craftberry Bush, Feature Friday at Five Days 5 Ways, Clever Chicks Bog Hop at The Chicken Chick
Homespunhappenings: Rustic-restorations-weekend-linky-party.html

Paper Origami Stars for My Mantel Swag.

My fireplace mantel was looking like it needed something.

I found this origami star ornament a blogger friend made

and decided I would try making some for my mantel.


They were fun to make, so I am sharing them with you.

 I was a little worried when I started because my attempts at paper airplanes

have been very sad indeed.

But I was determined.

After making three of these stars,

the process became much easier.  I was folding them out like a well-seasoned
department store present wrapper in little time.

Start by having 12 x 12 scrap-booking paper;

cut it into four pieces of 6" x 6".

I took pictures and if you skim down through them somewhat quickly,

it is almost as if you are watching me fold.

Give it a try...

(Unfold)

Now open this second fold up:

this makes an X in the middle of the two folds,

that's what you are after.

This lower right hand corner gets folded up so that the bottom corner

hits right into the X you made with the first two folds.

This piece just folded into the center

then gets folded back over onto itself.

 Now the lower left corner gets folded in...

 To line up with the last fold on the right half.

 Now take the left corner piece

and start folding it in toward the center line...

 BUT pick up the first sided fold,

 and fold the second half inside of it to line up with the center.

Then fold the right side over the left side that just went under it.

It should look like this.

 Now get scissors and place on lower half of the folded up star...

 and cut it from the lower edge

up to the upper edge on the left side.

"Wa - La!"

 Open it up...

 Refold the star along the lines so that all the points are coming up on the facing side

and fold down on the back sides.

 Adjust the star with fingers pinching up...

and pushing down on the star while pinching.

I used some thin wire to push through the paper and hang on the jute

(I also spray painted the white ones with silver spray paint.)

Perhaps now that I have mastered the star,
I can move on to grander things like...



Source: The Telegraph: created by Wataru Ito when he became bored during his university entrance exams.

this city: wouldn't my daughters love this;




although my son would prefer something more like this:

 
 Source: Inhabitat.com: Artist Anja Markiewicz folds amazingly tiny nano origami with miniature pieces of paper; these tiny creatures may be purchased.




I would love to accomplish something like this:



Source: by Lisa Nguyen




Although I think my husband would enjoy this:







Source: Origami.about.com: Money-Origami: Learn How To Make A Money Origami Wreath




But really, I am happy with my origami stars.

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Firefliesandjellybeans.com 

Momontimeout.com 

Raisinghomemakers.com 
Somewhat Simple, A Crafty Soiree at Yesterday on Tuesday, Thursday Favorite Things at Katherines Corner, Link Party at Centsational Girl, Inspiration Friday At The Picket Fence, The Best Christmas and DIY Crafts Ever at The Nesting Place, Link Party at Craftberry Bush, Feature Friday at Five Days 5 Ways, Clever Chicks Bog Hop at The Chicken Chick