Tackle It on Tuesday: Change of Plans

Just so you know, I am a blog-on-the-fly kind of a blogger. I don't have weeks worth of drafts prepped and ready to publish, I am lucky if I can put together 2-3 posts a week. So on some weeks, when I think I have the perfect post put together in my brain, life happens and my perfect post takes a different turn.

You see, last week, after I wrote my last Tackle It on Tuesday post, I was all ready to share with you how I would be tackling a pile of Food Network magazines I have been wanting to go through.

The magazine subscription was a birthday gift from my sister a couple of years ago. I have been wanting to go through them and 'pin' some of the recipes onto one of my Pinterest boards. But then yesterday, I listened to this podcast with the title, Freedom From Stuff.

The podcast really made me think about how I handle some of the 'stuff' in my home. Which brought me back to this pile of magazines. While I enjoy looking for new recipes to try with my family, there are other things I could be doing with my time. And if you look close enough, you can see that those magazines have been taking up space in my home for a while. Time for them to find a new home!

So speaking of stuff, there are things that need out attention every now and then. During the podcast, Joshua and Tsh had mentioned that as much as we try to simplify things in our home, there is always 'stuff' coming into our homes.

And right now, I have a sock drawer overflowing with socks. In a perfect and completely organized world, as soon as I purchase new socks, I would take the time to go through my sock drawer and give the 'old' socks to my husband for the garage. But, because I don't take the time to do this, I end up with a drawer full of socks that I can barely close because it is overflowing with socks! Yikes!

Rather than beat myself up for this happening (which is what a lot of us do), I plan to take a bit of time one day this week and clean up this sock drawer (and probably the underwear drawer too, but I probably won't be showing you pictures of that drawer!)

Do you have an area of your home or a task you have been meaning to tackle for some time? Plan a bit of time this week to tackle it. Let's encourage each other to tackle these tasks, so we have more time to enjoy our family and friends. Ready? Let's go!

Tackle It on Tuesday: Denim Star Garland with Tutorial

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This week, I tackled another fun creative project (Pinterest inspired!) using some scrap pieces of denim, burlap, fabric, buttons, and jute. I tried to take pictures along the way so if you want to try making this at home, you can follow along and make one of these for your own home.

The supplies you will need for this project: denim, fabric, burlap, quilt batting, jute, buttons, embroidery floss, star stencil, scissors, needle, and a disappearing ink pen.

I found a star stencil in my scrapbook supplies and used that to cut a star template out of cardboard for tracing around on the denim. My template was about 4 inches across. The garland has seven stars across and I doubled them up, so be sure to cut out 14 stars from the denim.

Your embellishments for the star are going to be a bit of burlap, a fabric heart, and a button. 

Layer your embellishments on one of the denim stars. Then with some embroidery floss, sew through all layers (denim, burlap, fabric, and button) to attach the button to the denim. You will repeat this step seven times, once for each star that will be along your garland.

Once you have attached all of the embellishments to the stars, you will start attaching the stars to the jute. Take one plain denim back, one quilt batting star (I cut these just a bit smaller than the template, the jute (which you have cut to about six feet or so), and the top denim star. Fold the cut jute in half to find the middle. This will be your starting point for sandwiching the star pieces to the jute.

Pin the star pieces in place, take some embroidery thread, and begin stitching around the outside edges of the star with a running stitch. Once you have finished with the first star, place the next star where you think it will look best (mine are about 3 inches apart).

After you have attached each star to the jute, you will now have a festive garland to decorate your mantle or food table for a summer party or wherever you decide to display it! You can get really creative with this project using a variety of shapes and materials. If you give it a try, be sure to let me know in the comments with a link to your finished project!

My project for this upcoming week? Going through some old Food Network magazines. Next week, I will let you know what I do with them.

The inequality of it all

This morning, I put on my new sneakers, plugged headphones into my iPhone, started up my walking playlist, and headed out on the concrete sidewalks around my safe neighborhood for my one mile morning walk. Not a big deal, right? A lot of people start their morning like this, why should mine be any different.

But then I start thinking....thinking about our walk to Felix's home just months ago...thinking about our other Compassion kids and wondering what their neighborhoods are like...are they safe? are they scared?

I feel my eyes filling with tears...and I get angry, frustrated, and disappointed that more people don't step up to sponsor a child through Compassion.

But then I remember something I read just this week:

"Let's be honest: it's hard to swallow the fact that some people won't believe in you or what you're doing. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It just means you've got to remember who you're doing it for." - Kristen Welch from 'Rhinestone Jesus'

And then I am humbled...we have only been sponsoring children for 4 1/2 years...and we are only financially sponsoring 4 children. There are many people who are doing so much more for God than we are, and have been doing it for so much longer than us.

Then I read this:

"When it comes to building God's Kingdom, the "bigger is better" mentality doesn't apply" - Kristen Welch from 'Rhinestone Jesus'

God is helping us to make a difference in the lives of a few children. It may not seem like a lot to us. But as I have been processing through these thoughts this morning, I have to remember, for these four children and their families, our small sacrifice is making a big difference.

Tackle It on Tuesday: Fabric Letters

This past week I tackled - Fabric Letters

I was really excited about starting this new project and had high hopes about this one, that is until I realized how hard it is to machine sew some of the curves on the letters, yikes!

Hard to use purple ink on purple fabric

Plus, purple disappearing ink does not show up very well on purple fabric...

Almost finished...

At this point, I just need to cut around the sewing lines and add a little bit of fray check to keep the fabric from fraying.

So will I be mass producing this project? Um, I think not. As cute as it is, I will finish this one up and keep it in our toy basket for when little people come over to play.

To tackle this week - a surprise

Burlap and fabric project in the works

Working on the fabric letter project over the last week gave me an idea for a new project using burlap and fabric. Be sure to check back next week to see what I come up with!

What project are you tackling this week?

Sometimes, child sponsorship is hard

First, there was Natalia, our very first Compassion sponsored child. We started sponsoring her 4 1/2 years ago after reading blog posts of a friend's trip to India to visit his own sponsored children. We chose her because she was close in age to my own daughter. At the beginning of our sponsorship journey, we really didn't get it yet. So when we learned that Natalia's family had moved away from the project area just a few short months after we started sponsoring her, it wasn't really too hard to go online and choose another child to sponsor. That is when we started sponsoring Lina, who we have been sponsoring now for almost four years. And I am hoping to go visit her in February 2015 on a Compassion Sponsor Trip!

LIna, our Compassion sponsored child from Colombia

Then there was Eduardo. Sweet little Eduardo from Mexico! He was the little guy I was planning on visiting when I initially paid my deposit for the January 2014 Compassion trip to Mexico. We had been sponsoring him for a year and a half at that time. But shortly after I had paid the deposit for my trip, we learned that his center had closed and there was going to be no way I could visit him. I was devastated. It wasn't until our trip in January that I found out that God had a reason for us to choose another child. Although, He knew all along which child I needed to be connected with. Felix and I have a connection. One that I know, personally, is hard to live through. But because of this connection, I know how to pray for Felix and his family.

Felix, our Compassion sponsored child in Mexico

Then in October of 2012, we started sponsoring Katherinne for our daughter Kelsey. Katherinne is just a few months older than Kelsey and she is from El Salvador. Now that my son and I have been on a Compassion Sponsor Trip together, we have talked about Kelsey and I going to El Salvador some time in the near future so we could visit Katherinne. After many months of letter writing back and forth between Katherinne and Kelsey, we received an e-mail last week that Katherinne's parents have removed her from the program. And just like that, she is no longer a part of our 'family'.

As a Compassion sponsor and advocate, we hear statistics quite frequently which are quite depressing about the number of children living in poverty, without clean drinking water, and the number of children dying each and every day. Because the numbers are so big, it is hard to think about those numbers being actual children with a name, and a family.

But as a Compassion sponsor, we are in a relationship with children living in another country. They become a part of our family. We love them, we pray for them, we write letters to them, and we get excited when their letters arrive in our mailbox.

When that relationship is abruptly ended, it is hard. But God never said life on earth was going to be easy. We will go through trials and hardships. And as hard as it is to say 'goodbye' to the children we have 'lost' as sponsored children, there are many more who are still waiting for a sponsor today.

A couple of days ago, Kelsey chose another child to 'replace' Katherinne.

Meet Alfredo!

This is Alfredo, he is a four year old little guy from Mexico. So it looks like, in the near future, I may have a chance to take my daughter to Mexico too!

Yes, sometimes child sponsorship is hard, but I believe God knows what He is doing. And I will continue to trust in Him with the children He places in our family.