Making Monday - Collage

Just to show that I don't just do cards and cross stitch, here is a collage I am rather proud of. As usual, sorry for the quality of the photo.

A few years ago I was given a picture-a-day calendar of the Lord of the Rings, using stills from the films. Each day, when I took off a picture, I kept it, because I didn't want to throw them away. At the end of the year I made a collage, which was so well received that I made two more as gifts - and I still had pictures over, which I reluctantly threw away.

Collage is simply an arrangement of pictures in any way that pleases you. They can be overlapped, cut down, put at angles etc.

Thinking Thursday: Outlook

I am reproducing below a snippet from the March issue of Writing Magazine. It reports on people's outlook for 2010. Some are advice, some are pessimistic, some optimistic. You may find one that appeals to you, but they all bear thinking about. Maybe you have one of your own (please share with the rest of us) or would like to adopt one (optimistic I hope) as your motto for this year:

"In a writing style that makes Twitter look verbose, the BBC asked website readers to share their outlook for 2010 in three words. Weeding out all the political and religious sayings, we're left with such as these:
'C'est la vie', writes Jo, West Sussex
'We're all doomed!', Mike Smith, Leeds
'Grow more vegetables', Karl, Essex
'Ignore the Hype', Jay, Ireland
'Peace is Necessary!', Mahindhar Ghanwani, Hyderabad, Pakistan
'Reduce, reuse, recycle', Rosa Smith, Nottingham
'Money isn't everything', Jim, Keighley
'Poorer, sadder, older', Sue Hudson, London
'Bring back ethics', Ginia, Vila Real, Portugal
'Just the same', Thomas Smith, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
'Patience, trust, hope', Abdul Basit, Dubai
'Abstinence from abundance', Pj, Finland
'Invest in leisure', Josh Kalish, Hakuba, Japan
'Go for it!', Judi Evans, Paris, France
'No silver lining', Filis, Beijing, China
'Never give up', Mr John, Tokyo, Japan... not very original but, perhaps, as good a message as any."

For the record, my current motto is 'Defy gravity.' You need to listen to the song from Wicked to understand.

Making Monday - Men's Cards

I realised recently that I make a lot of pretty cards, and don't have any suitable for men, so here are a couple to remedy that.


This first one illustrates what you can do with peel-offs. Rather than just stick them onto a card, I stuck these two fishes onto orange card and cut them out, and then mounted them onto the panel on the card. The smaller fish is stuck on directly, and the larger fish is mounted on foam pads to lift it over the smaller one.


The 'Happy Birthday' is made from funky foam sheet cut using craft scissors to create a patterned edge. I used a small square of chinese paper and cut along the pattern to make the curved corner, before adding the sentiment peel-off.

This second card (sorry about the quality of the photo) shows what can be achieved with a very simple design. I used a strip of 'Happy Birthday's and some self adhesive ribbon in strips, and put a star at the end of the shorter strips. The shorter strips, by the way, were the left-overs from the full length ones.

Cards don't have to be complicated.

Thinking Thursday: Live Fish

A short one today. The following Latin inscription is on the wall in the Blue Boar in Hay on Wye:
Pisces Mortui Solum Cum Flumine Natant

I'm not sure how good the Latin is, but it looks OK to me. Here's the translation for you to think about:

Only dead fish go with the flow

Making Monday - Construct a Poem

Today could be a combination of Making Monday and Thinking Thursday, since it is a poem which is something to think about. But I'm putting it under Making Monday, since it is a very unusual poem.

Virtually all my poems are inspired in some way, and often the initial lines or outline come to me, and I then have to work on the rest. But, last year, as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Poetry Society, one of their members ran a competition for a poem with either 100 letters, syllables, words or lines. To my amazement, I came up with a blank verse poem of exactly 100 letters, which I am very proud of. It was put into an exhibition where the winning entry was voted on by the public.

I have also used it to enter a competition which wanted a piece of writing in less than 140 characters, including punctuation and spaces. Unfortunately it didn't win anything, but I think it's quite good.

Living

It is not life,
But living it.
Not circumstance,
But our response.
We build a web
Of memories,
And craft each day
A trap or cradle.

Blinded by the Light 22 The Need To See - The Solution

The wonderful thing about Christianity is that God's promises are written down, so we can be sure of them. We do not need to see instant results or signs to know that He is faithful to His promises.

The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving to all he has made. (Psalm 145:13b)

Spend more time studying these promises and remember the times in the past when God has answered your prayers and those of others, and especially where things have worked out very differently to what you hoped for, but were still for your benefit.

If you have been living with 'the need to see', it can be hard to let go. Life can seem uncertain and unsafe. You need to retrain yourself away from this and get back to the solid foundations of promises whose outcome you cannot see, but you can believe in. As a simple example, many years ago, when I moved from a very charismatic church to a more formal one, I found it hard to worship without getting excited and jumping around and getting a 'buzz'. One day in church I clearly felt the message "Their worship is just as acceptable to me." I was reminded of the scripture that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart, and looked at the hearts of those in church around me and realised that truth. It was a growing experience for me to learn to worship God in stillness too.

In the Truth part of this topic I mentioned that the Psalms are full of cries that God seems to have turned away, leaving them to trust in His promises. Here are some of their responses. May your life respond in this way too.

My soul faints with longing for your salvation, but I have put my hope in your word. (Psalm 119:81)

Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your servant loves them… Trouble and distress have come upon me, but your commands are my delight. (Psalm 119:140, 143)

Previous posts in this series:
Introduction
Legalism: The Truth, The Trap, The Solution
Magic Formulas: The Truth, The Trap, The Solution
Answers to Everything: The Truth,The Trap, The Solution
Scripture Twisting: The Truth, The Trap, The Solution
Superstition: The Truth, The Trap, The Solution
Elitism: The Truth, The Trap, The Solution
The Need to See: The Truth, The Solution
Further posts to come in this series:
Conclusion

Thinking Thursday: Soaring, Running, Walking

Isaiah 40:31
Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not faint.

The above quote from the Bible used to puzzle me, because I have been a Christian a long time, but I don't soar very often. I have a disability, which I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog, and often feel very weary indeed. Then I read something like this in one of those daily reading books, and it comforted me greatly:

Eagles soar without any effort, being lifted on thermal currents. Sometimes we soar on the wings of the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes we cannot soar, but we can run, and God will give us the strength to not grow weary.
Sometimes things are really hard and we cannot even run. But God will uphold us if we lean on him.