Reaching out, Part 2

Reaching out Part 2…

Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me...

Matthew 25: 40    

 

Lord, help me be content

With where you’ve placed me,

Give me thy good intent

To tell more of thee.

Then let me show my thoughts

In acts that can’t be bought

Doing good, I’d be caught.

I want to serve you.

 

I may like other folks

Seek to be famous,

This matters not the most

But what you’re name is

And that I’d want to learn

Your fire would in me burn

And never your law spurn.

I want to serve you.

 

Lord, I would like to go

To far off countries

More of your mercy show

And what your name is

To spread your love around

In air or on the ground

No matter where I’m bound.

I want to serve you.

 

But if your will for me

 Is to stay at home

And minister for thee

To friends or unknown

And be contented here

With all my friends so dear

Instead of far, I’m near.

I want to serve you.

 

Lord, help me follow thee

Where ere thou leadest

At home, on land, or sea

To know thou feedest

They children every day

Art light, and truth, and way

And I can truly say,

“I want to serve you.”

 

Lord, help me be content

With where you’ve placed me

And never to relent

To tell more of thee

But as I onward go

To all thy goodness show

And all thy blessings know.

I want to serve you.

 

 Reading over this poem that I wrote several years ago I am struck again.

There are so many things I’d like to do. So many places I’d love to go. But when I actually think of all the opportunities right here around me, I know I don’t really need to go to far off countries to find needs or places to show God’s love.

There are places here where I can reach out.  I can reach out to my neighbor lady by sitting with her for 5 ½ hours (even when it’s short notice), I can reach out by helping mothers from church, or people who are behind in their work. I can volunteer to help community children, have a game night with community young people, or get to know the neighbors who I don’t know.  Some of these I’ve done, some of these I will do, and some of them are just dreams, even though they are close to home.

What are the opportunities close to you? What can you do to ease someone’s burden, to brighten someone’s day. I know, a smile does a lot, but I am encouraging you to do something extra and intentional.  (And I’d love to hear about it too, you can comment or send me an email... vanessasventures2@gmail.com) 

And I believe in doing the “small” things, being faithful at home, is good practice for whatever “bigger” things God calls me to farther on down the road whether it be at home, on land, or sea. 

Oh, and by the way, they above poem can be sung to the tune of “Now Thank We All Our God”.  Click the link to find the music.

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Todays card projects aren’t really a specific card type, but they are a few ways that I like to make a quick card.

For the first two all you need is washi tape and stickers…

The easiest one for me, and I like how it looks, is to simply make an >< on the front of the card and then add a flower or butterfly sticker like this…

You can also just use tape to make a pattern on the front of your card.

 

Another method is using sticker letters to write on cards.

You can buy all kinds of neat stickers either at Walmart or some other local store, or online, or get the same stickers I showed here.

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Another neat kind of “stickers” are rub ons, the ones I used for these cards were made with prestype.  I’m not exactly sure where you can get them since all of the stuff I’ve used was given to us. Basically it is a way to “write” nice when you don’t feel your handwriting is good enough. J We have several different fonts which are fun to use all together.

First I drew lines to mark the center so it would turn out somewhat balanced.  The problem is you have to erase the pencil lines before you stick the letters on because the letters can be very touchy.

Once you’ve chosen what you want to write you just lay the sheet of letters down and using a stick or some other object related to that rub over the letter that you want.

You can tell which letter I rubbed because it is paler than the others. Once you have the letter completely rubbed over you move the sheet to where the next letter is in line and repeat the process until you have everything written that you want.

Here I finished using this font and then switched to another font.

Now I am done with this card.

Warning: some rub-ons stick to your hand or partially come off if they stick to something else.  You have to be careful with them.  If part of a letter comes off I usually just use a pen to fix it.

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The next way I’m going to show today is to use stencils. They are a lot of fun and you can get all different fonts to use.

You probably know how to use stencils…but in case you don’t...decide what you are going to write on your card. Next draw lines (this is optional) to center your words. Trace each letter with a pencil, so you can fix them up if they don’t turn out. J

Once I have the letters all traced I like to go back over them and connect the places that aren’t connected and then go back over it with a pen.

With the Happy Birthday card I went back through and filled in all the letters with different patterns of dots, lines, etc. I used the different colors of the rainbow and did the same pattern with the same color. 

I included this picture because you can kind of see how I connected the letter parts from how they were in the stencil to the finished product.

You might have noticed I used a sharpie pen for the first card and a sharpie marker for the second one.  In the above pictures you can see the insides of both cards.  Can you tell why I like the sharpie pens best?

Sharpie pens cost more but in my opinion they work a lot better since they don’t bleed as much or soak through.

This card I made using both a stencil and prestype letters.

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One last way you can make cards this week is with stamps.  This is a method I’ve hardly done and I don’t have any stamps to demonstrate with but there are some really pretty cards made with stamps. So, if you enjoy that method, that‘s another way to do nice pictures and writing without actually writing it yourself.

Happy card making.  Keep reaching out and building God’s kingdom in your corner. -Vanessa