God's Priceless Gift!

Hello friends!  I hope you are enjoying a great week!  I had an unwelcome visitor this past weekend... the stomach bug!  I am so glad to say I'm finally starting to feel well again!  Whew!  Glad that's over with!

Anyway... I have not had time to even look at my craft room lately so I'm going to share a "reject" card I made a few weeks ago, not intending to show it here.   I was going for a collage card to tell a story of our Saviors birth, so I loaded quite a few images on here from Our Daily Bread designs.  I began with a Baked Brown Sugar base from SU!.  I stamped the Midnight Clear Background on ivory card stock, then stamped the clock image from God's Timing, and cut with the ODBD Matting Circles dies.  I die cut a Splendorous Star , and stamped two sentiments from the Admit Three Ticket set.  I die cut them with the ticket die that comes in the Mini Tags die set.  I also stamped the image from The Babe,  colored with Copics and Pencils, and cut with a Spellbinders Curved Rectangles die.  I sponged everything with distress ink to age a bit and then simply layered them up.  I loved the sentiments on these two tickets... especially the one that says "God's Priceless Gift ~ free to bearer" 

God's priceless gift to us on that special night, when God Himself came to dwell among us... is beyond my comprehension!  Have you ever thought about what He left in heaven... to come live with us?  He came knowing what He would have to face, and the pain He would suffer!  He came because He loved us and wanted to give us a precious gift we could not earn ourselves!  He wanted us to be able to live in His presence, but  sin had separated us and there was no way we would ever be able to take care of our own sinful state!  There was no way that we could pay for our own sins, and no way we could live a sinless life.  So a substitutionary payment was provided in our perfect Savior... the Light of the World!  His priceless gift is forgiveness of sin and a future with Him in heaven if we will but receive His gift!  It's free to US, but my friends, it was anything but free to Him!  

This Christmas, as we look around the world and see it literally falling apart all around us.... let's focus our minds on eternal things!  This world is groaning with sin, and we are seeing the result of that more and more all around us!  I believe time is short until the Lord returns for His children and takes us home!  The things of this world, while alluring and desirous, are all temporary and leave us feeling empty and looking for more.  Only that precious Gift who came in to the world as a baby born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger in Bethlehem can give our lives eternal meaning!  Only He can cover our sins and remove them as far as the east is from the west, and remember them no more!  Only He can declare us righteous, because of His shed blood on the cross, and His victory over death!  Only He can fill us with peace... He IS our peace, and we can face uncertain tomorrows knowing that we are at peace with God, and we have the peace of God in our hearts knowing our future is secure in Him!  Let's focus on these things and give Him all the thanks, honor and glory due Him!

If I don't post again before Christmas.... I wish you and yours a most Merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year!!!

 

From our House to Yours!

Hello friends! 

From our house to yours.... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 

Today I have a quick card to share with you using this month's ODBD release, Let it Snow, and some partial snowflakes from a past release, Sparkling Snowflakes.  I stamped and sponged my MB snowflake stencil with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Iced Spruce.  I love the blueish green tones.  It reminds me of the retired Sage Shadow color from SU! which I miss very much.  My card base is Neenah Solar White and I cut my image panel with last month's die release, the Flourished Star Pattern die.  That gives the edge the tiny piercing that I could never do myself that evenly.  I popped the entire main panel up on dimensionals for a little extra pop, since the card is basically very simple.  I added the sentiment which is cut with a SB Ribbon Tag Trio die, and I added some tiny partial snowflakes from the Sparkling Snowflakes set and adhered with ribbon.  Simple and very doable in mass!

I hope you enjoyed my card today.  If you need a quick idea, this might help you get some made up in time to mail this year! :)

I have been focusing my mind and thoughts on the birth of our Savior throughout this Advent season.  I thought I'd share some Scripture with you today which gives the account of how Mary was first told by the angel Gabriel, that she would conceive a child, and that He would be great, and would rule His people.  There is so much to ponder in these verses, but what touches my heart today is Mary's response.... "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word. " I'm not sure I would have been that willing to be scorned for being pregnant out of wedlock in a time when that was an offense with dire consequences.  I'm not sure I would have wanted to start my marriage to Joseph already pregnant.  I'm sure I would have worried about what Joseph would think of me!  However, I think it was her heart that God found favor with, for her response showed her willingness to  do whatever God wanted her to do.  I hope you can take a couple moments to read Luke's account:

²⁶ Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”^[c]
29 But when she saw him,^[d] she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. ³⁰ Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. ³² He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. ³³ And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”
³⁴ Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”
³⁵ And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. ³⁷ For with God nothing will be impossible.”
³⁸ Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

I am entering this in the ODBD Shining the Light Challenge, which is Christmas!

Blessings to you during this most special season, from our house to yours!

Happy Birthday Tickets!

Hello my friends!  So gad you stopped by today!  I have something very CAS (clean and simple) to share with you today, which although not my usual style, I found fun to create and quick enough to actually be able to get several made for upcoming needs!  

I created this with the ODBD Dec. release, Admit Three .

I simply created a little border of birthday tickets from the Admit Three set, using different inks to coordinate with my chosen My Mind's Eye design paper, Hootenanny.  The inks I used are Primrose Petals, Daffodil Delight, and Marina Mist.  I added two ODBD Custom Beautiful Borders from a past release, and matted that on to my design paper, which I had pierced around the edges.  I popped this entire panel up on dimensions on a white card base.  I added a sweet multi-colored sheer bow to finish it off.

Today's blessing from the Word:

We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.

Proverbs 16:9

I'm so thankful that my future does not rest in the plans that I make, for I would mess up many things in my life with my limited, finite understanding!  I can trust God who is sovereign and all knowing to direct my steps and know in full assurance that His plans for me are only for my good, and His glory.  

As we come to the end of another year, I hope we can all commit our ways to Him and trust His plans for us!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Welcome to the ODBD Dec. Release!

Hello friends!  Welcome to the ODBD December release! If you have not had a chance to view the entire release, you might want to pop on over to the ODBD Blog to see it all.  Here are the details for how you might win one of the prizes up for grabs this month:

Three randomly selected winners will each receive a $15 gift certificate to the ODBD Store, to be used toward the purchase of ODBD Stamps found in the "stamps column" of the website just for commenting on the Design Team cards!  You have until December 2, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. EST to leave your comments on the Designers Blogs for a chance to win!  The Winners will be posted on the ODBD Blog on December 3rd, so be sure to check back there to see if you won!

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Now on to my cards...

For the card above, I used the new Let it Snow set.  I stamped with Memento and colored with Copics, then went over the silver parts with a Wink Of Stella glitter pen.  I marked on the back of my paper where the bells were and then hand embossed them from the back to give them some depth.  I love the effect even though I can't really capture it with the camera.   I also used some past releases on this card, including the Sparkling Star Die and the Vintage Labels Dies.  I cut two of the stars, one from glitter paper, and one from white, then I stamped my sentiment and colored the star to match the designer paper, which was last month's release, the ODBD Christmas Paper Collection 2014.

For my next card, I used the gorgeous new Gilded Gate Die, and two of the mini sentiments from the Mini Tag Sentiments set.   I cut them with two different mini tags from the Mini Tags Die set.  I LOVE these little sentiments and I know I will use them over and over!  I also used an older stamp called Garden Path.  I stamped this beautiful image on watercolor paper with Archival ink and watercolored with Derwent Inktense pencils and then shaded and colored the sky with pastel chalks.  My picture seems to wash out the colors a bit but in real life I love how this came out and how perfectly the path lines up with the gate!  I cut the Gilded Gate from black card stock and tied the little sentiments to a tiny spray of flowers with some fine gold cording.  This card is 5x7" and is matted with metallic brushed gold.  The dp is from Hobby Lobby, Paper Studio.

To re-cap, here are the new ODBD products used today:

 

I hope you enjoyed my samples today!  

 Be sure to visit my DT sisters and leave a comment so you don't miss a chance to win!

Julie * Chris * Cathy * Lori * Dawn * Sandee * Paula * Angie * Lisa * Audrey 

* Silke * Wanda * Grace * Gracie (Guest Designer)

Blessings,