Things with Lace..

My craft obsession of late has been with using lace. And since my mom requested to see some pictures of said crafts, we have ourselves a new post!

By far the easiest one to whip up was a pair of lace earrings. What you'll need is scrap lace - the teensiest amount will do! - two buttons same size, (and same color, if your lace is somewhat see-through), and two earring stud posts. I produced my earring posts by disassembling some studs I didn't use anymore :) But they can be found at Walmart, as well.

My lace was from a circular tablecloth.

Trace circles from your lace slightly bigger than the size of your buttons. Cut out, and lay your button in the middle, flattest side down, with a tiny spot of hot glue. Fold over and glue the edges to the back of the button.  

Then take your posts and glue to the back as well. And you're done!

I'm also wearing the top that I refashioned with lace.

What I did was cut a rectangle about 6 inches wide, and the length of my shirt + an inch. I folded the lace strip in half, sewed closed on two sides, then turned inside out so there was no open seam line. I then positioned it on the front of my shirt, sewed down the longest sides, and also folded and sewed it under the bottom hem of my shirt.

Finished:

And as long as I'm posting repeated pictures of me in the same shirt, now for a craft not involving lace! It's just as simple (and fun), and turned out just as nice as the tutorial made it look.

Fabric pom-pom pendants.. made with any scraps of material, and a flat pendant. Great tutorial found here

So fun to make, have done several for gifts. 

Traffic Lights and God's Timing

Do you remember back when you were first learning to drive?

For myself, one of my worst fears was that the traffic light would turn yellow as I was approaching or crossing the intersection. I can remember asking my mom what I should do in that scenario. Her response was something along the lines of saying the decision had to be made in the moment; you had to use discernment to either speed up or slow down.

I didn't like that answer. I wanted a hard fast "this is how you know whether to go or slow" rule of thumb. The using your judgment thing scared me.

I could just see myself braking square in the middle of an intersection (which I'm sure I tried to do a couple times), or coming to a safe stop entirely TOO soon, making drivers behind me mad.

In time, she was exactly right, and as I got more driving experience, the decision was nothing more than natural.

Even though I'm not a "new Christian," of course I'm still learning how to walk with God (way harder than driving with people!) - and sometimes I think I demand of Him a hard fast rule of thumb for what I'm supposed to do in scary situations that may come up in the future. "If I could just know in advance, Lord, what I'm supposed to do that would be great. Let me know Your will ahead of time so I can write it down, meditate on it, practice it; then I'm sure it will come to me quickly for those decisions when I need it."

The mediating on His will and wanting to be prepared sounds good, but that mentality highlights our flawed thinking in two ways:

1. There are no "certain situations" where His direction would "come in handy." It's 24/7. It's Him running the show.
2. A lot of the time, God requires us to act in faith. No formulas to apply to ease the scariness or the pain, no getting things figured out ahead of schedule. Then what would we need Him for? God requires us to do scary stuff. Like letting go. Like driving blind.

God will often lead us into situations solely for the purpose of seeing what shape our reliance is in. When we are completely leaning on Him in trust, then He will shed light on the way for us to go. Not before. His timing always has meaning. And sometimes the lesson for you is that faith is strongest moment by moment.

Two Weeks Later..

So I may or may not have had the blogger tab open on Chrome for plus or minus two weeks, waiting on divine inspiration for the "perfect" blog title. Yes. Lame.

Purpose of this blog is manifold:

+ To document the first year of our marriage - successes and mistakes, the moments I'll treasure, the little things I get excited about, what we learn from each other.

+ To share my craftiness with the general public (forced or otherwise). Chris has come to call all of my crafts, household projects, and homemaking recipes "pinterests." He's more or less got that one right..

+ To express my sometimes put-together, sometimes scattered revelations about life and God and what He's showing me. Maybe it will help someone else, maybe it will just help me.

Oh and maybe I could introduce myself? 41 days ago I married my best friend (Someone asked how long it had been last night at church prayer and Chris was quicker than me in his count of 40 days! 40 days and 40 nights.. [: ). I enjoy calligraphy, style, making cool looking things and just plain making things. Both to say I made it, and to enjoy the product. Love spending my time with my husband doing an array of things - dancing, making food, him explaining what is going on in the comic book movies when we go to see them, laundry, "helping" him when he was working on his motor - or nothing much at all.

And originally I was going to wait to blog until I had my wedding pictures (hey come on, you've got to say that's a terrific way to attract readership right off the bat. Who doesn't like looking at wedding pictures? Ok, rephrase, what girl doesn't like looking at wedding pictures??), but since I still don't have those, I figured maybe I should just actually start WRITING things that are interesting to read... yes I'm proud of that concept.

I hopemaybesorta that is a good enough start to a blog?! I don't know. If you are wanting to know why I settled on "Shine forth" for the name, go read Isaiah 60. Yeah. I am thinking I left things out about myself that are maybe important... but that's why somebody thought of the "addendum."