Finding my voice...

Hello friends,
I am in one of those soul searching moods and have been praying to find my own style, my own art, my place where I feel satisfied. And then this morning in my devotions, I was struck by the beauty of the morning, the colors in the sky, the beauty of the birds' song...God IS THE ULTIMATE BEAUTY CREATOR. We are ALL gifted in many different ways to make beauty around us. He made us like HIM and we long to create beautiful things to reflect HIS glorious creation. We long for fulfillment, to be satisfied, to find a way to release that creativity that God has gifted us with.

But the truth is, we live in a fallen world.
Not everything here on earth is beautiful, or just, or loving, or kind.
We are pilgrims in a place not our own. We long for HEAVEN!
Our hearts are set on eternity and being with the ONE who gave us LIFE and LOVE, and JOY!!!
And so here is the dichotomy, we long for what is non-existent here on earth.
We will not find true fulfillment.
We will not find perfect relationships, perfect love, or perfect peace.
We WILL struggle, have pain and LONG for HEAVEN!!!

It's OKAY!!! It brings me joy just to know that one day, we WILL have all hearts long for!!!

In the meantime, I ask God to fill me with the gift of blessing others.
That my art is grace to the receiver and they are blessed to know that God cares about them and I do too.

So with that, here is a card I created and I am going to use it to enter the Hero Arts challenge for July.
The theme is "summer".

The leaf stamp is a Hero Arts stamp.
The window is cut out and outlined in black ink.
The inset in the window is a card I received from a friend.
I love the colors of the flowers on that yellow/green background.
The leaves are black and silver, but the inset tells me that there are brighter days coming.
http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/july-2011-contest-details/

Thank you for reading the transparency of my heart.
I have to share what's on my heart...
I would love to read any comments you might have.

Be blessed today!!!! and tomorrow, and the days, weeks and years after that!!!

Love,
e

It's JULY already!!!

I know I speak for most of us...where has June gone???
We are having a wonderfully BLESSED summer with family this year!
Our granddaughter came to be with us (she is 15!) We had such a great time!!!

Here she is with her bunny (Nemo)...can't leave home without him.
Then the rest of Kirstin's family came and we have a FULL HOUSE!!! (Fun, noisy, never boring, busy house). I LOVE IT!!! I hate it when they leave, our house gets so quiet!!!

Here is a picture of their youngest son (Eli, 6) petting a horse at the July 4th celebration.
Those police officers were so friendly, it was great for the kids to get such a wonderful impression of them.

Anyway, today I have a new card for you. A bit of a different take because I am trying out a new idea (for me anyway) of having a minimal card with many layers. I really like the look.. it speaks to me on a personal level because I used elements that I really loved. I am not giving this one away because the dangling shell is one I have enjoyed for a long time and don't want to really part with it.

The card base is an off-white cardstock, covered on top with a designer paper I had in my stash.
The embellishment paper is a design I made with alcohol inks on shiny cardstock. I make several pieces and then use them to cut into designs or use like I have here.
The half circle is a Heidi Swapp rub-on, cut in half.
The shell ornament is hanging on a metal loop hanger attached with a large pearl brad.
I wrote "Life is...." by hand and attached a little gold and tan butterfly that I cut out of a Mariposa 8x8 stack.

I am entering this card here http://ourcreativecorner6.blogspot.com/2011/06/your-style-and-design-team-call.html for a DT call.

I really like the look, hope you do too.
It feels "artsy" to me and that's what I was going for this time.

Thank you so much for looking,
Come back soon,
e