The Blessing of Time - Faithfully Yours Challenge

Hello and Happy Friday! I'm not sure where this week went, but it sure did go by fast! I am hoping to have a productive day today. I have a couple of projects that I need to finish up today. I have a closet in my dining room that's been turned into what I call my "craft closet" and I've been reorganizing it this week. It has most of my sewing supplies, some of my favorite cookbooks, my home organizing system (kind of like a master plan book, but it's in a file organizer.....I need to share about this, too!), my Bibles and prayer books, kid craft books and holiday books, Gracie's art supplies, and a big file crate that has all of the holiday and religious holiday activities, crafts, and recipes filed in it. Whew! That's a lot for one little closet! lol That's why I've been trying to reorganize it, so that I can use that space as best as I can.

Anyway, sorry I got off topic....lol..... I wanted to share with you my "The Blessing of Time" layout that I did for the "A Year of Blessings-2010" Challenge at Faithfully Yours. You can see the blog post talking about this theme by clicking here. It took me a little while to think of what I wanted to do for this theme until one night when I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep. I usually sit in bed and read for a couple of hours and sometimes it's hard for my brain to stop, so
that I can go to sleep. lol But, I was super tired and I think that sometimes God uses that time in me to chat. So, this popped into my head and I pretty much didn't have "a satisfied mind" (as my mom always says) until I worked on and finished the journaling for this layout. I must say, that God is pretty persistent with me and He has to be, because I am pretty stubborn. lol

Here's my layout and my journaling.....I think the journaling pretty much explains everything.... ;-)
Journaling:

Lately, it has become painfully obvious to me of how much the Lord has blessed me with the gift of time. It is painful, because I am realizing how much of this precious time I have actually wasted. I have wasted so many years......years that I should have spent with my eyes turned towards God, not my own desires and wants. Times when I let myself get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and not willing to give up any of my “precious time” to spend talking to the Lord. I have been so selfish with this blessing of time that God has given to me. Here is the amazing part though. God’s time isn’t like mine and thank goodness for that! And, even better......God is always wanting to forgive me and to give me more time to work on my faults and short-comings when it comes to my ever-stumbling walk in faith. Well, now it is my time. My time to begin again. My time to pour my life, my love, my heart and soul towards God. It’s all that I can do. Stand back up, brush off my knees and get back on the narrow path that leads to the never-ending love and compassion that God is wanting to give to me. Oh Lord! How I need your help! I can’t do this without you. I know that now. I have failed so many times. Wasted so much time. Please help me use the blessing of time in ways that focus on You, help me remember to pray, help me remember to turn to you and scream and cry when I’m mad or upset, help me to humble myself and remember that only with your help all things are possible. I know in my heart that all of the other parts of my life will be so much better, just by spending time with you. Yes, there will still be hard times, but they will be so much easier to bear. Thank you, Lord. Thank you so much for this amazing blessing of TIME.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time
1 Peter 5:6

Digi supplies from:
Weeds & Wildflowers Design- Cherish Every Moment (all of layout except for the following)
paper leaf - Weeds & Wildflowers Design- A Better Me
Clock Face - Faithfully Yours

I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoy doing faith-booking pages. My head gets so full of everything and goes a mile a minute sometimes. It can be hard for me to calm it down so that I can sit and have quality prayer time. But, when I am working on a layout, the creative-thinking part calms my mind and I am able to think so much clearer and then the idea comes t my mind and the words start to flow and before I know it, my scrapbook page has turned into my prayer and the time I spent working on it my prayer time. It's taken me quite a while to figure this out, but I know that God has known this about me since I was created because He created me this way for a reason. He blessed me with this grace of creativity and He knows that it's the best way for me to talk to Him.

And now it's time for me to be creative in a different way! lol My little one wants me to build a house out of blocks with her. lol I hope that you all have an amazing day today and are able to spend some time doing something creative and crafty!

Sneak peek of a new project!

Lots of new things are happening at Faithfully Yours and I'm excited to be a part of it! For 2010, they are having a blessing challenge. Each month, they will be posting a new blessing and everyone is encouraged to create a layout about that blessing. At the end of the year, we all will have an amazing book all about our blessings!

Here is the cover to my "A Year of Blessings" book. I decided to do this project digitally, because I have a feeling that I will have a lot more journaling on these pages than photos. And, when I write, I write A LOT! lol So, this way I will be able to write like crazy and have plenty of room.

January's theme is "The Blessing of Time". Here's a sneaky, peeky of the layout that I created for this months theme. I will share the whole layout with you as soon as the newest e-zine from Faithfully Yours is released. It will be full of great layouts by other members of the Design Team at Faithfully Yours. Be sure to visit this post here at the Faithfully Yours Blog about the "A Year of Blessings 2010" Challenge. Click here to see the blog post about this months theme: TIME.

I am really looking forward to doing this challenge this year......I hope that you decide to join us, too! We all have so much to be thankful for and have received so many blessings!

An exciting announcement....

I have been picked to be on the scrapbooking Design Team at Faithfully Yours! I haven't ever done anything like this before, so I'm a little nervous. But, I am so excited to be given this opportunity to share my scrapbooking pages about my faith. I was thinking about faith-booking last night and the easiest way that I can describe it, what faith-booking means to me, is that it is like saying a prayer to God using the grace of creativity that He has given me. Sometimes my mind is in so much of a jumble I can't even think straight to sit and pray, but then I can start working on a faith-booking page and pour my prayers creatively onto a scrapbook page.

I am really looking forward to this experience and especially to work on more scrapbooking pages that focus on my faith journey.

You can see some of my faith-booking pages here....

Restore to Me - digi layout

Here's a digi layout that I was able to do today. Once I saw the lyrics to this song, I knew that I had to do a faith-booking page about it. The song is "Restore to Me" from the Glory Revealed CD.

Here are the lyrics-

Restore to Me

Hide your face from my sins and cover my iniquities Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me

Don’t cast me away from Your presence
or take Your spirit from me

Restore to me the joy of your salvation
Restore to me the wonders of your love
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
Restore to me, restore to me

Deliver me from this hour of darkness
Through the pain and brokenness
And I will sing of Your loving kindness
And of Your righteousness

The song is based off of Psalm 51:9-12. It's a beautiful reminder of how we need to pour out our fears and worries to the Lord and ask Him for His grace in our times of need. I know that this is something that I need to work on......a lot!

His Holy Name - Sovereign

Another page for my His Holy Name mini-book.....

Sovereign-

How great you are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears.

2 Samuel 7:22

His Holy Name - Protector

Here's my latest page for my "His Holy Name" mini-book.......

Protector

My rock and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge....
Pslam 144:2

His Holy Name - Holy page

Here's the first page for my book! I'm so happy with how it turned out! I pulled out some old tools/supplies for this one, which is always nice. The small dragon fly stamp is from and old Stampin' Up set. The body is colored in w/ chalk and the wings w/ Caspian Sea Radiant Pearls. Then I stamped the dragonfly again on vellum w/ Versamark and some heat & stick power, and covered it w/ Diamond Dust so that the wings looked shimmery and transparent. I painted the back of the wings w/ the Caspian Sea Radiant Pearls. I also painted the letters for HOLY with Oyster Shell and Caspian Sea Radient Pearls, so they are shimmery and pretty as well. I had the evening sun coming in on my dinner table so I was able to get some good pics w/ the wings sparkly. Now to work on the next word: SOVEREIGN



God Bless!
di

His Holy Name - book cover

I have had this project on my mind since December when I first found out about this weekly project at Faith Sisters. You can learn more about this wonderful, year-long project here. It's taken me this long for it to finally come out of my mind and become the front of my book. I know it sounds silly, but things like that can kind of stew in my brain for awhile and when it's finally time for it to be made, it just happens. That's what happened today and I'm really pleased with how it turned out! There are many times when my husband will come in my scrap area and I'm busy working away late at night and I have to tell him, "I have to get this out of my head or I'm not going to be able to sleep!" lol Usually good things happen then, when I'm not forcing things and let them finally just happen. Now I get to start working on the pages that will go inside. I can't wait! I'm planning on adding lots of ribbon for the "binding" of the book, so that will have to wait until the end of the year when all is finished with this album all about words that describe the greatness of God.

God Bless,
di