Make The Best of It

We've had some infections here, but now seem to be on the mend, praise God!

And, as the last days left no time for creating in the traditional sense, I had a deep sense of "life is art".  

Today, I did have time to edit some photos and made this.  Some of my favorite photos are from years back and this is one of them.  

From inside an abandoned house, life was lived here.

♥

This is wallpaper in one of the rooms from the above house.

Oh gosh.

Life is art
your life~
your art~
let
it
shine

♥

A Scrappy Wreath

Yesterday, I was working on another Scrappy Cake and was a bit stymied as to how to finish the top.

I had a foam wreath laying in the sewing room thinking that I wanted to make a scrappy wreath with it. No shortage of vintage fabric scraps here!

Now seemed like a good time to proceed and let my "cake" bake a little longer so to speak.

A doily tied in the middle made a perfect bow!

This was a winner of a project and very easy!  This wreath has Liberty of London fabric vibe, but these are all vintage scraps bought from auctions and garage sales!  

Merciful Love

Throughout this year, I will be posting to my page, Year of Mercy.  You can read more about the Year of Mercy in this post.

Who are you?

Where have you been?

Where are you going?

Those answers or the desire to answer them will lead you to the only one who can give meaning to them.  

And, He longs for you with merciful love .  

I took the picture above at our St. Augustine's Church.  St Augustine is noted for a well known quote, "You have made us for yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

♥

"Horsin' Around"

We helped our oldest granddaughter celebrate her 4th birthday on Saturday.  

She decided to name her little needle felted baby (see this post) "Yellow" because she is wearing a yellow dress of course! 

After she had finished opening her gifts, she picked up the little dolly again.  And, asked, "Why is she so hairy?" Hahahahahaha!!  I knew I needed to work on my finishing skills with needle felting! I turned to the other kids by me and told them, "THANK GOODNESS she noticed the yellow first or she would have been named Hairy!"

Her horse themed party was really cute!  Be sure to note the use of wrapping paper purchased on clearance as the backdrop and table runner...cute decor for little to nothing!

Cake!!

Awe...her little sister just hanging out not caring about cake, horses, or hairy dollies! This was a rare sighting without a bow. 

She's only 8 months old, so we still have a bit until we get to hold up one finger, but the time will fly!

A Wee Little Gift

If you follow along on Instagram, you may have seen that I was using some old aprons in new projects. (Vintage aprons I was going to donate and then decided I better keep them!)  My daughter came down to the sewing room and posed me, ha!

I made this horse from Ann Wood's free horse pattern.  She painted hers, but I had the perfect fabric from an old apron (the one I'm wearing above) to cover mine.  My grand daughter's birthday party is today and themed with horses so I thought it would be fun to make a horse tag for her.  Well, I decided this one should stay here and that a pink one would be better for her.

So, back to the vintage apron pile and the cereal boxes and another horse was born!  Another great fabric.  I love the movement in both of these fabrics for the horses!

And, since I've been in major exploring and creating mode with all kinds of ideas, I decided to try a little needle felted baby to stick in with her gift too.  She's only about 3" long.

And, the baby needed a little sleeping back in case her little sleep sack she's wearing isn't warm enough. :)

It will be fun to see what my granddaughter names her.

I have a lot to learn about needle felting, like how to make it smoother.  I'm pretty sure it's dependent in the needle you use last.  Sadly my needles are mixed up and I can't really tell which is which.  I didn't have time to sit and figure it out on another bit of felt.  Oh well.

It's been freezing here again...looking forward to the return of spring!

Monday Morning

I have been enjoying the morning dew this past week and today decided I needed to stop and take some pictures.

The world changes when you get close to it.

And, your jeans get wet when you lay down to take pictures up close. :)

The dew drops make for beautiful bokeh.

A little chilly this morning compared to the 80 degrees we had yesterday.

I can't enjoy the dew without a memory of walking beans as a kid.  Ewwwww....stepping into that bean field covered with dew on the cooler August mornings was so awful!

But, now my legs and tummy dried off quickly and it was worth it for the pictures.

Happy Monday!

Small Little Monuments

These photo edits are something a little different for me for sure as I'm expanding my comfort zone in my photo editing.  I've come back to these photos a few times and still like them so will post them I guess. :)

  We by chance (aka a God thing) came across the Brainard Cemetery last summer.  I just had my phone with for pictures, so that's what I used.  I was really intrigued with this cemetery. Part of it was completely neglected (the photo above) and part was cared for and groomed.  There were so many beautiful stones in the groomed area.  In this unkempt area, the few stones that we read were from the 1800s and for children of the same family and it left me without words.  

I added another photo of mine that means a lot to me to make this composition. 

I could have spent so much more time there, but it was getting dark and we needed to be on our way.  I'm pretty sure I'll make a return trip some day. 

The little monuments crumble.  The grass grows long. A name on a stone that is hard to read and will be gone in a few more years continuing on in this state. 

But, their souls are known to the Father, not just that He remembers them, but that He knows them.

Makes you stop and think a bit.