Sunburst mirror

I saw this great DIY mirror on one of my favorite blogs... The Lettered Cottage. 

We have been working on renovating our master bedroom, so I decided to try to tackle this mirror to put above the bed. Mine definitely did not turn out as good as Layla's on the Lettered Cottage, but I am happy with the results. The only problem was that I did not cut my shims down 4 inches like they did, so my mirror ended up being realllly big and therefore it did not fit over our bed :(. So... I found it a home on the wall leading upstairs. Those walls were really bare and need a little something anyways. Also, you can see it when you are sitting in the downstairs living room, so I think it worked out to be a nice addition to our walls.

Materials you need:
Cedar Shims (found at Home Depot. I had to ask where they were located since until a week ago I had no earthly idea what shims were. You will need to packs)
Liquid Nails - Home Depot
3 floral rings - Michaels
8 inch mirror - Hobby Lobby
White spray paint - I used Rustoleum's Heirloom White from Home Depot
mirror hanging kit

I basically just copied this tutorial from the Lettered Cottage, except for that my shims didn't line up quite as perfectly as their's did :(, I think it's because I glued shims around the 2 outer rings first, and then I glued rings around the smaller ring and then stapled the 2 separate rings of shims together. If I ever make another one, I will not do it separately like I did but instead line up the shims for the smaller ring over the other shims on the bigger rings and attach them that way. That might not make sense unless you see it in person. I also spray painted my shims white before gluing the mirror on. Here are pictures of how my mirror turned out:

This was a pretty inexpensive not too difficult addition to a very empty wall! If you like it, you could totally make one too! Have a great Sunday.

Fun with Students

This summer was our one year anniversary in Spring Hill! This past year went by so fast, and Brian and I are so thankful to the Lord for all He is doing in our lives and in the life of our church. I have really enjoyed helping out with the students this past year at Station Hill. It has been so incredible to look back at how the students have grown in depth this past year. These middle school and high school students LOVE Jesus. They find so much joy in serving Him and in drawing closer to Him. They have been such an encouragement to me in my walk with Christ as well this past year. One thing that has really touched my heart is their heart for missions. There is growing passion inside them to reach the ends of the earth with the Gospel. It is such a beautiful thing.

We recently had some of the students over to our house to make bracelets for orphans in Russia. Craft Hope organizes different projects to help people in need around the world. I am always checking out their projects since I love to make some crafts :), and when I saw the one for orphans in Russia, I knew our students would be interested. Craft Hope partnered with Orphan Outreach to collect bracelets to hand out to girls in orphanages in Russia. No, the bracelets are not really providing any physical needs, but they are showing these orphans that people on the other side of the world love them and care about them, and hopefully they also, through the ministry of Orphan Outreach, saw the love Jesus has for them. It was a great way for the students to spend some time thinking about orphans and doing something to serve others. We also had a lot of fun making them!

Below is a picture from our end of the school year party with the students. It was a great end to a great year!

Brian and I also recently had the opportunity to go with the students from the Station Hill and the BBC campus to Panama City Beach for camp. We really enjoyed hearing Aaron Bryant teach some awesome truth from God's Word, be led in worship by Dave Hunt, participate in some great small group Bible study time, and have tons of fun on the beach. One of the SH students trusted in Christ as his Savior during the week and Brian had the privilege of baptizing him. That was by far the best part of beach camp.

I am looking forward to continuing to serve with this ministry and see how God uses these students to impact the world with the Gospel!

Also... on a lighter note :).... We remodeled our master bedroom. It involves some gray paint (that looks blue), chevron fabric, some great Ikea buys, and a cute yellow pillow. I'm almost done and will post pictures of the projects I did soon. I hope you're having a great summer!

Burlap lamps and friends.

While I was shopping (I mean looking:) in downtown Franklin one day, I noticed tons of burlap lamp shades.... and that just grew my burlap obsession to even greater depths. I don't think my husband thought that was possible :). So, I came home and decided to attempt to cover one of my lamp shades in burlap.

All I needed for this project was burlap, hot glue, scissors, and some fabric for the flower I made for the lamp.

 I just started at the top and glued the burlap to the inside of the lamp shade like this:

 Added a little flower for some flare.

And ended up with this.

 
I think I am going to spray paint the lamp post white as well. I think that will make the burlap stand out more. I'll post a picture when I finish that part.

Our friends Aaron, Kristen, and their sweet baby Noah came to visit us recenlty and we had a great time showing them around Nashville. Brian makes a great tour guide. We had the best time showing them some of our favorite places, and we are already looking forward to their next trip here! Here are a few pictures from their visit:

LLLL UUUU !! :) Loved having some Liberty alum in my home! Thanks for coming guys. Come again soon :).

Garland is not only a Christmas decoration.

This past weekend our dear friends Kristen and Aaron and their baby, Noah, came to visit us! It was SO MUCH fun. I wish they would have stayed forever. We had a great time showing them around Spring Hill, downtown Franklin, and Nashville. I also found out that Brian makes a really great tour guide :). While we were showing them around Hillsboro Village, we went into the store, Social Graces. Kristen and I saw this garland made of coffee filters, burlap, fabric and jute that we fell in love with. So we decided to try to make it ourselves. Thankfully, I had all the materials at home so this craft cost zero dollars. Definitely my kind of craft.

Here is the garland from Social Graces:

Here is how I made my own version. I made my "bunches" a lot smaller than the ones at Social Grace. All I did was cut circles out of coffee filters, fabric, and burlap (you all know how much I love some burlap). I then cut a small hole in the center of all of them and pulled the jute through. I had to use a little glue to make it look a little messier and more like a bunch. I also crinkled up the coffee filters to make the bunch look a little thicker and messier. I tied a knot in the jute on each end of the material I used to hold each individual bunch in place (sorry I forgot to take pictures of that part). 

And that is my non-Christmasy, hopefully a little summery, free, handmade garland.

banners, babies, and a tasty dessert

My sweet friend Arley is having a little girl very soon! Eva Kate (pronounced 'ava'... it's european:). I went to a super fun baby shower for her recently.

We all wore read and white which made for some very cute pictures. 

 I made a banner for the shower and some letters for her nursery (tutorial for the letters can be found HERE).

 We also decorated onesies for little Eva using some fabric and a lot of glue (I'm still peeling glue off my fingers).

Here is mine. I used to much glue it's probably still not dry. Sorry Arley.

This is a banner I made for a baby shower for a soon to be mama from my work.

I will leave you with this really yummy recipe I tried this weekend. I love when I can use my trifle bowl. I think even peas and brussel sprouts would look pretty in a trifle bowl :). Click HERE for the recipe.

Charles Spurgeon

During Secret Church, David Platt shared the conversion story of Charles Spurgeon. I had never heard it before, and I was very moved by it. Here it is:

Conversion of C. H. Spurgeon: The Prince of Preachers - compiled by Hy. Pickering

C. H. Spurgeon, of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, was born at Kelvedon, Essex, in 1834; converted Jan., 1850, at the age of 15, at Colchester; gave his first Gospel address at Faversham when he was 16, and for thirty years declared almost weekly, to audiences numbering five or six thousand, the glorious Gospel of the blessed God; millions of his sermons have been scattered in all parts of the world. He quietly passed from Mentone to Heaven, Sunday, January 31, 1892.
Would you like to know how such a man got saved? Here is his own description of it:
"I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning, when I was going to a place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a court and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel. In that chapel there might be a dozen or fifteen people. The minister did not come that morning: snowed up, I suppose. A poor man, a shoemaker, a tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had nothing else to say. The text was, 'Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.' He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter.
"There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in the text. He began thus: 'My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, "Look." Now that does not take a deal of effort. It ain't lifting your foot or your finger; it is just "look." Well, a man need not go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man need not be worth a thousand a year to look. Anyone can look; a child can look. But this is what the text says. Then it says, "Look unto Me." 'Ay,' said he, in broad Essex, 'many of ye are looking to yourselves. No use looking there. You'll never find comfort in yourselves.' Then the good man followed up his text in this way: 'Look unto Me: I am sweating great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hanging on the Cross. Look: I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend; I am sitting at the Father's right hand. O, look to Me! Look to Me!' When he had got about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes, he was at the length of his tether.
"Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. He then said, 'Young man, you look very miserable.' Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck. He continued: 'And you will always be miserable — miserable in life and miserable in death — if you do not obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.'
"Then he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist can, 'Young man, look to Jesus Christ.' There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the Precious Blood of Christ."

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

I found it here.

Missions slideshows

We had Secret Church this Friday night and i made these slideshows from BBC mission trips and some trips I have been on for the breaks.... except I didn't get to share them. Something about my mac not being compatible with the church's system.... oh well. It worked out well because Secret Church had awesome info and videos on the persecuted church around that they shared during the breaks (that we didn't know they were going to have). My heart is still so full and processing everything we learned/experienced last night. I will blog about it soon. In the meantime, be in prayer for the persecuted church around the world. We watched a video about some men in India who saw people in their village killed and their homes burned and lost everything in this world because they were Christians, and they still proclaimed victory in Jesus and gave Glory to His Name. What an eternal perspective! It was truly beautiful.

I hope the faces of these videos encourage your heart to pray, send and/or Go and to be a blessing to the nations today.

Some "LOVE" was added to our picture wall

I had a blank canvas hanging on my picture wall that I needed to do something with. I had a few different ideas but nothing that I really was in love with. Then I thought of this well known sculpture:


And thought.... how can I put that design on my canvas? This is what I ended up with:

What you need to do this too:

Canvas
Paint
Contact Paper
Scissors
A printer

What I did:

I enlarged the LOVE picture and printed it out. I cut out the letters to sort of make a stencil for my canvas.

I traced the stencil onto contact paper, and cut it out.
I painted the canvas white (I know its already white, but I like the texture of paint better than the plain canvas and I thought if I needed to touch up any areas with paint, it would be better if the whole thing was already painted white).

After the paint dried, I stuck the contact paper to the center of the canvas. If I ever do this again, I'll use a vinyl that will stick better. The contact paper didn't stick to the canvas as well as I had wanted it to.

I painted over the whole canvas (with the contact paper still stuck to it) with green paint.
Then I removed the contact paper from the canvas.... to reveal the LOVE :). It bled in a few areas. If you used a better vinyl I don't think it would do that as much. I had to touch up a few spots with white paint, and then I had my finished product.



Pretty easy. Things I will do differently next time will be to use spray paint instead of using a paint brush, use something that sticks to the canvas better, and maybe even do it on a piece of sanded wood instead of canvas. Anyways.... I hope you like it!

I also recently got this 8x10" canvas for free (well shipping was $15.... but that is still really cheap for a gallery wrapped canvas!). I still need to find something to put under my tree canvas. I have a shadow box I am thinking I will put there... I just need to decide what to put in it.



I hope you are enjoying this beautiful day!

craft hope - {spreading seeds of hope one stitch at a time}

craft hope - {spreading seeds of hope one stitch at a time}

Life was busy... and then we went on vacation.

Sorry for not blogging much lately. Our lives have been a little bit hectic and then we were out of town for a week. My cell phone broke while we were in Florida, and we did not have internet access, so it was actually a really quiet, restful, technology free vacay. I loved every second of it. Our vacation consisted of lots of reading, pool time, beach visits, time with my sweet grandparents, shopping, more reading, sleeping.... and rest. It was nice. Very very nice.

The one thing I realized as we were driving back to our home, is that this place is actually starting to feel like home to me. It has taken a while, and it's been a little rough at times, but I am now truly thankful that God has placed us here. I'm thankful for the sweet friendships I have made. I'm thankful for the church He has placed us in. I know this is where we are supposed to be right now, and I'm looking forward for what is to come while we are here.

Speaking of being thankful.... my book club just read One Thousand Gifts: A dare to live fully right where you are by Ann Voskamp.
The perspective this book gives you is invaluable. Here is the description on Amazon: Just like you, Ann Voskamp hungers to live her one life well. Forget the bucket lists that have us escaping our everyday lives for exotic experiences. 'How,' Ann wondered, 'do we find joy in the midst of deadlines, debt, drama, and daily duties? What does the Christ-life really look like when your days are gritty, long---and sometimes even dark? How is God even here?' In One Thousand Gifts, Ann invites you to embrace everyday blessings and embark on the transformative spiritual discipline of chronicling God's gifts.

In the craziness of life, this book reminds you to slow down, fix your eyes on Christ, trust Him, and be thankful. Read the book. You'll definitely be challenged/convicted/blessed by it.

And here are a few pics from our vacation :)