Life, Joy and abundance!

Hello everyone! Happy Sunday! I hope you are enjoying a wonderful weekend! With Sunday comes another Stampin Sisters in Christ Challenge, and this week, Peggysue is our Challenge Hostess. She has chosen John 10:10 for today's Scripture:

"I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly."

You know, God is so good! Many of us think of the joy of our salvation mainly in terms of an eternity spent with God because of the work Christ did on the cross... but I think we sometimes forget about the change He makes in our lives here and now when we come to know Him! His very nature is pure love, and He wants only the best for us. Before we were even born He knew us and loved us! Now that doesn't mean that He never allows bad things to happen to us... sometimes we need the bad stuff... perhaps for our own growth, perhaps as a witness to others of how having Christ in our lives carries us through difficulties. He knows what we need the most, and that is to be in a right relationship with Him! When we are, then our lives are filled with joy and true fulfillment! That is what life more abundant is all about! The first part of this verse says that the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, and that is what Satan wants to do! He will lie to us, accuse us, keep us feeling all sorts of negative feelings and thinking all sorts of destructive thoughts if we let him! But Christ came that we may have life and enjoy it to the fullest! Let's determine today to not let the devil rob us of our joy and to enjoy our Savior and our new life in Him to the fullest! That's His desire for us!

Peggysue's challenge this week is
Use a series of hand drawn in dashes or lines, like faux stitching, or real stitching on your project

I have used a cute Whiff of Joy stamp I won from the sweet Crystal in some blog candy she was giving away. I had so much fun coloring this! I paper pieced Willow's dress and shoes and colored her with Copics. I don't get to do cutsie images all that often and it was fun to get a little practice in on skin and hair with Copics! I also used this week's Midnight Madness Sketch 70. I pierced around my panels and drew faux stitching lines with a SU! Marker.

Card Details:
Papers: Papertrey, Neenah, BasicGrey Porcelain, scrap for dress
Ink: Memento, SU! Marker for my faux stitching
Accessories: Spellbinder's Classic Rectangles and Classic Scalloped Rectangles, Prima Flowers, MS bough punch, May Arts Silk Ribbon, ZVA Creative Pearls, SU! Piercing Mat Pack

Our sponsor this week is Simon Says Stamp, where you can get this sweet image I used as well as MANY others! Good luck in the drawing!

We'd love to have you play along! If you do, please leave a direct link to your card on the SSIC Blog and please link the challenge in your post!

Be sure to check out the rest of the Design Team for more inspiration for this week's challenge!

Chris
Cindy
Linda
Randi
Peggysue
Miesje
Rebekkah
Lisa
Patti

Challenges I'm entering this into:

MMSC70 Sketch
Bee Crafty - Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations - Lace and Sparkle (my dp top panel is lace, lots of sparkle)
Gingerloft- Anything Goes
Charisma - Something new or never tried before (this is the first time I used this stamp)
Pocket Full of Posies~ Floral Fantasy
Lexie's Creations- flower power
CES (Crafty Emmas) - Floral Frenzy
Digital Tuesday Challenge blog -use dots & stripes! (Lots of dots, stripes on bg panel)
365 Cards - tools and techniques (Copics for coloring, pearls for dimension)
Fab n Funky- What'Eva
Stamp Something - Something Cute
Your Next Stamp - Anything Goes