Crafters Of Faith Monthly Challenge

Crafters of Faith is a group of Christian bloggers that met and bonded on SplitCoast Stampers.   Every month, on the last day of the month, we post a card with a theme chosen by a member of our group.  This month’s theme was chosen by MaryRose and here’s what she had to say:

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6 Hello, Crafty sisters! Can you believe the holidays are here? I LOVE this time of year! Peppermint Mocha Lattes, twinkling lights, Hallmark Christmas movies...every good and perfect gift pointing to our Savior. My favorite part of the season? Christmas carols. I LOVE Christmas music, and I have so many CDs that I have to start listening to them in October just to fit them all in! LOL I have a few favorites that make it into heavy rotation (Amy Grant, Kathy Mattea, Point of Grace, Sara Groves), and others that are strictly instrumental and fill the house with the ambient sounds of the season (Jim Brickman, Windham Hill's Celtic Christmas, and more). This month's challenge: Make a card based on one of your favorite Christmas songs or carols. (The Bible verse I chose is often associated with Handel's Messiah, another favorite!) Make sure your card has a little twinkle to represent the light of the world. Bonus points to anyone who includes kraft and gingham in their design (just because I LOVE kraft and gingham!) So there's your challenge! Plug in that Christmas music and get inspired! I'm even learning some Christmas carols to play on my dulcimer.

 

 

One of my favorite Christmas Carols is “The First Noel” so I went to my favorite resource for images and googled the song.  I found the perfect image that had an antique’ish look to it so I saved it and printed it.  Then I cut it into an oval using my Silhouette.  I adhered it to a slightly larger, black oval to matte it.  The red paper by Recollections, although not quite gingham but as close as I could get, was used because MaryRose said she was giving out bonus points, lol.

 

 

The “Noel” on the bottom right was also printed and cut with my Silhouette. I used a copic marker to color it and washed over the top of it with my colorless blender to try and achieve an antique’ish look.   I adhered a few jewels to the bottom left to give it the twinkle which represents the light of the world.

I can’t believe Christmas is less than 4 weeks away.  I’m not one who enjoys all the hustle and bustle of the season – in fact, it rather brings me down -- so taking some time out to reflect on this challenge and what this holiday is truly all about was just what I needed.  Thanks, MaryRose. 

I’ll end this post by sharing a poem that I wrote back in 2004…

The Reason For The Season
©  Dec. 21, 2004

‘Twas 4 sleeps until Christmas and all through the town,
much hustle and bustle and madness abound.
The people all scurrying about in a flurry,
in hopes that their shopping got done in a hurry.

The children done school & home for a break,
stirred up & excited, give Mom a headache.
And Dad working steadily to pay all the bills,
how that long list of Christmas gifts gives him the chills.

Soon all had lost sight of the wonderful reason,
why Christmas was such a significant season.
Far off in their minds was that day long ago,
when a babe was sent down to a manger laid low.

His birth was a blessing from the Father above,
given to mankind to show His great love.
A treasure so precious to you was bestowed,
on that day in a stable where love overflowed.

God knew that one day His Son's life would be given,
and into His hands & feet nails would be driven.
Christ would die, rise, ascend to his Heavenly place,
Our sins now forgiven by His mercy and grace.

This is what Christmas is really about,
a free gift of LOVE that never runs out.
There is only one present that truly has meaning,
it's the CHRIST that's in Christmas on Whom the star's gleaming.

I hope you enjoyed.

Clear It Out Challenge…

Well, it’s time for another Clear It Out Challenge and this one is going to be a little hard on the eyes so I’m apologizing upfront, lol.

Theme: Ugly Sweater Time
Stash:  Use your ugly, unused scraps of paper from your stash.

The sponsor for this challenge is Digi Darlas and she’s giving away 5 digis to the winner of this challenge.

I decided to take my scraps and cut them into strips.  I adhered them to the card front to create the background.  As you can see, a couple of the papers were glued on upside-down but I think that just adds to the ugliness of it, don’t you? 

The image is by Digi Darlas and it was colored with copics (YG 61,63,67 / R22 / E000,00,11,29,35 / B01,04,06 / R81,85 / W-0 & Colorless Blender) and Bic Mark Its (Rambunctious Red/Salmon Pink/Spring Green/Lemon Yellow/Prairie Berry). 

I created the sentiment on my printer with PeaMillyMix free font.  I used pop dots to pop-up the image and the sentiment and that’s it!  Easy, peasy.

Hope to see you at the Clear It Out Challenge Blog where you can join us for this challenge.

New Feature…

Hi friends.  I just wanted to let you know about a new feature I’ve added to this blog. It’s a “Share With Me” option which can be found on the toolbar just below the header for this blog.  It’s my hope that those of you who use the digital sentiments & freebies I create, will share a picture of the card/layout/project that you’ve created by linking it up through the linky tool.  So check it out … or better yet … use it!

Annoying Mr. “Anonymous”…

I’ve been getting a ton of anonymous response scams to my posts.  I don’t know of any way to stop them other than to use word verification for commenting.  I don’t really want to do this as I fear it will discourage people from commenting and I love to read the comments. Granted, these “anonymous” responses only show up in my email and not on the post itself but I still have to delete them from my inbox.  What to do, what to do?  Do I just leave things as is and continue to delete from my inbox …. or do you have any other suggestion on how to handle this annoyance?

Challenge Time on the Clear It Out Challenge Blog

Grab all your RED supplies and join us for an anything goes challenge!

Our sponsor this week is Sassy Studios

Break out your tucked away RED supplies and create any paper creation.

Don't forget to link back to the Clear It Out Challenge Blog so you are eligible to win the Sassy Studio prize!

Here’s my card.  It’s called “Keeping It Simple”.  Doesn’t need a lot of explanation since it’s pretty straight-forward.  I figured the background paper (Michael’s Recollections) had enough going on that I didn’t really need to add a whole lot more.

Hope to see you over on the Clear It Out Blog where you can join me in the challenge.  Enjoy :-)