Weights of Worries, Unforgiveness, and Sin

Hefty title, heh? Pun intended!  My husband, Sunday School teacher extraordinaire, came up with a brilliant idea to help our girls understand how worry, unforgiveness and sin can effect our lives and those around us. {We have Sunday School at home with our kiddos here in Portugal.}

First, he had the girls “practice” obeying God by walking to the table and back as if God had given them that instruction. He held their hand as if God was going with them {and He does!}.

He first put a belt around their waist, and bungee-corded “a worry” they might have, then another onto the belt. Then he asked them to do the same obedience exercise, walking to the table with God. This time is was more difficult for the girls to keep up the pace with him and not get hurt! Hmm…how does worry affect our walk with God?

He used the same weight example with sin that we don’t confess to God and receive forgiveness for.  As with worry {it is really a sin in itself: Matthew 6:25-34; Philippians 4:6}, unconfessed sin interferes with our relationship with God, our ability to receive His love and walk in all the good stuff He has for us!

We also talked about unforgiveness—how it is a weight on us to not let the other person off the hook, whether they ask forgiveness or not!

Lastly, we talked about how we can give these weights to other people if we’re not careful—interfering with others’ ability to receive God’s love, and to obey and worship Him. Nothing like a little weight to make a worship time difficult!

My heart in sharing this is more than documenting our own family’s journey with God. We hope YOU can know:

• the LOVE of the Father in such a way that His TRUTH replaces worries
• His plan of forgiveness through His Son, Jesus, for EVERY sin
• how we can FORGIVE OTHERS because we are forgiven
• how we love others by not defiling them with information about others, stirring up fear, and things like this

If you have any questions, I’d love to field them as I can. We’ll be working on not carrying these weights at our house!

The Mint Bed

Last year, we buried two buckets full of dirt and mint in our garden, hoping to let the mint have more space and still be contained. It thrived for the most part, but later we discovered it had hopped out of it’s boundaries! Amazing how such a wonderful plant can take over!

We decided to try something different rather than the mint being bound to pots this year. They don’t seem to do as well for me there—probably my lack of watering! 

My husband dug a small pit under the ladder to the kids’ playhouse, next to our bunny cage.  He lined the pit with weed barrier, filled it back in with dirt, and started putting all our potted mint plants into this new bed. There were several different varieties of mint, but I didn’t mind them growing with one another.

Here is the mint bed about a month later. We collected bigger rocks from various beaches we’ve been to here to edge the bed. It is filling in nicely!

Now we’ve got to attend to the grass problem--the sprinkler hidden in the corner there is not reaching the grass. My husband is such a good sport to continually tackle keeping the yard watered!

Our bunny is not complaining about this new treat next to the cage. Thankfully she cannot reach all of it!

Guest Room Redo

Over a year ago, I wrote about motivation to complete our guest room. I’m glad to report that a few changes in that room make it more of what I hoped it could be in this house. Did you see my lampshade facelift after buying a new duvet cover? Well, this new cover continued to inspire the change from this:

to this:

We decided to not paint the freebie headboard for now. The beige Euro shams and other light-hearted textures and color help off-set its heavy feel. We changed out the rug with a blue one we’d used in our old office too.

I made the center pillow from an old flannel pillow case I found at the flea market. We added one more plate with a little blue to balance the plate wall around the headboard.

  

I did not previously post about my side table paint job since I was kind of disappointed in it. Long story short: Getting the right paint in Portugal has been a challenge for us! However, it works if you don’t look too close! A chair re-do is in order when the funds are available.

A few other blue touches around the room helped pull together what I was going for—a little less stuffy/a little more fun I think! My current guest is enjoying it!

Tissue Box Beauty

I’m on a roll {HA!—especially when I’m talking about tissue!} with seeing what needs to be changed or finished around here. Amazing how a new round of guests coming can motivate me!

Since I moved overseas, I had to start using the long versus tall boxes of Kleenex/tissue because they didn’t sell the tall kind in Germany, much less cute boxes.  So I couldn’t use the tall decorative covers I brought from America. Portugal does offer many nicer looking boxes of tissue, but the price is not worth it. Did I like this look? NO.

But sadly I settled for this look for WAY TOO LONG. This paper maché cover has been waiting for some attention for possibly 4 years!

I had some sweet guests who brought me a swath of new scrapbook paper from America, so I had new inspiration to get moving with.

 Much better, heh? It was really simple to trace around the edges and hole of the box to the back of the paper, cut and then glue on with decoupage glue. I love it!  This inspired me to attack the other blank box in my bedroom.

This tissue box cover is wooden {so German!}, and I had bought some lovely fabric-like paper in Germany to cover it. Thankfully I had not nabbed it for another project! I tried to cover it with one whole piece and layer the seams. It worked out pretty well except that you can see the wood grain through it in certain spots.

I’ve actually seen some pretty amazing homemade tissue box covers in blogland—quilted, embellished, you name it. Yet using paper was doable enough for me that I might have to go find some more blank covers to bring some beauty to an otherwise unattractive necessity in our home.

Linking up to Tatertots and Jello Weekend Wrap-up Party!

Pillows Part 3: Don’t Forget Alaska

If' you’re curious why this is part 3, check out part 1 and 2!

Sometimes I think I should name my blog “Sew Imperfect”, but I’m sure that’s someone else’s blog already. Thankfully all the mess-ups in my crafting adventures haven’t stopped me yet. And every now and then I have a moment when it all comes together with nearly no hitches. This pillow was one of those!  Check out my new favorite pillow:

You can find the tutorial for this pillow at kiki creates. She includes a template of the map that fits on a normal size piece of felt, but you could use any fabric. I was about to start sewing it on and not include a heart {like Kiki did} since we have family in many places. Then my husband requested I include Alaska where he grew up and his mom currently resides. I chose an image on Google that looked simple enough to sew around. Alaska’s placement was a little tricky on my pillow—it looked funny floating where it geographically is. So, as it is on many maps, Alaska seems to be more tropical. {Sorry Hawaii, you didn’t make the cut. I know those of us from the “Lower 48” often don’t understand.}

This pillow gives me hope for future felt and applique projects. I learned I did best when I went very slowly or hand cranked my sewing machine to make all the turns.

So, the new pillow crew is done, at least for now!

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Pillows Part 2: Fave Clothes on the Couch

There have been a few of my daughters’ clothes that were very difficult for me to part with. Those made from amazing fabrics have found a home in my fabric stash! My living room pillow redo was an opportunity to enjoy these great prints again! {Check out part one of the pillow making extravaganza if you missed it.}

One of my favorite photos of the girls to date! {In front of our home in Germany 2 years ago}

I had to cut off the bodice which let the gathering out. I was able to get two 16-18 inch squares from the dress. As I happily worked along, I accidentally cut with my rotary cutter down the wrong side of my cutter guide, about 1/3 of the way into one of the squares! I quickly decided instead of beating myself up over this mistake, that I would use some of my linen look-alike fabric to help. Thus entered the ruched look into this pillow.

I basically followed the instructions for making the t-shirt scarves from last year, then sewed the ruched piece between my two printed pieces.  I discovered it was best to run it through the machine with the ruched part on top to make sure the needle caught each ruffle. The first time the ruched was on the bottom, and I had to go back and hand sew a few spots that got missed.

So, not perfect, but fun, a solution to a situation gone awry. And even better paired up with the other pillows!

You can’t see them, but zippers were my closure of choice—the first time I’ve tried those since my college sewing class. Yes, another mountain that was not so scary to climb, IF you’re not a perfectionist.  The closure for my next pillow became the next mountain….

Buttonholes! I figured it out now, but with much messiness, ripping stitches, etc. Don’t look too close if you ever visit. Again, this one did not turn out perfectly, but it was a fun was to use a cute top of my daughters’ for a small pillow that did not go with my new color scheme.

The shirt in another of my favorite photos from 2 years ago {can you believe my camera got this shot?}.

Because I decided to use the hemmed bottom edge of the shirt for the center button closure, there wasn’t enough fabric to cover the back. So, the linen-look fabric got utilized again. I think this and using the big brown button helped this pillow not look too much like something for a kids’ room.

In position with the rest of the old clothes, dish towels, forgotten treasures, and flea market misfits…

…and part 3 of the pillow making to come!

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Pillows Part 1: Infuse Some New Color

A few weeks ago, some chocolate got on two of the throw pillows in our living room. {Cream puffs were the culprit!} I decided to wash the pillow covers. One came out fine. I could not zip up the other afterward, and it was coming apart a bit. So….

…what an opportunity to change things up! I’ve had mostly red and green décor in our living room for at least 6-10 years; I really can’t remember when it exactly began. I didn’t want to completely redo everything, so I decided upon a really FUN fabric I bought from the flea market to make a pillow from. It added turquoise, orange, and a lot more pink!

I chose to trim a square of it and back the pillow with some linen colored fabric to calm it down a bit. I successfully managed to make mitered edges!

When I was working on this pillow, I remember I had a Pottery Barn Outlet too-good-to-pass-up purchase pillow that never found a spot in our home. I dug it out of storage, and it matched perfectly!

Next, I decided to use a bit of the multi fabric to make a ruffle for a dish towel pillow I made a few years ago. It really helped pull things together. This was phase one of the living room color infusion. Stay tuned for part two!

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Addendum: Hey, hey—thank so much!!!