Show & Tell Friday for August 28

One of the first crafts I ever tried was embroidery, many years ago. I grew to really enjoy it, especially crewel embroidery. I don't have photos of most of my projects, and I gave most of them away as gifts. Here's one example, though. I made this Hummel crewel project for my grandmother, who collected Hummel figurines. She eventually gave it back to me, so now I have it on my wall. I do apologize for the quality of the photo here.

I continued to enjoy embroidery until I discovered, and fell in love with, counted cross stitch. That became my craft of choice, and I work on projects here and there whenever I have a few minutes. It tends to take me a long time to complete a project. Here are bits and pieces of a few samplers I have done.

This cross stitch project was a gift for one of my daughters. I am particularly pleased with this one. It was quite challenging. Mr. T. made the frame to my specifications, and I painted it antique gold.

In the past few years I have found myself drawn to embroidery again. Maybe the Lord is preparing me for when my eyes will no longer be good enough for counted cross stitch (although I hope that day never comes!). I have done embroidery on apron pockets, like these:

And day of the week tea towels like this one:

And these:

Although I have a couple of cross stitch projects in the works, I have lately felt the itch to start an embroidery project. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. But, when doing some decluttering in my craft closet, I came across just the thing. Many years ago, when an elderly friend of ours passed away, her husband (who knew I loved needlecrafts just as she had) gave me some of her things -- a tin of needlework things, etc. I had completely forgotten about this other item, though -- a large oblong tablecloth which she had started embroidering and never finished. There are eight napkins with it, and those are completed. But she had only begun the first corner of the tablecloth. There is a large motif in the center of the cloth, and largish motifs on the corners, with small ones on the sides. She had the first corner perhaps 1/3 completed. I decided that there was my embroidery project. I work on it for a little while most evenings, and here is the first corner all completed!

I love the bright retro colors. This is probably from the 1980s or maybe a bit earlier. It lifts my spirits to work with these bright colors and watch the flowers bloom!

That is my simple Show & Tell for today. To see what others have shared for Show & Tell Friday, head on over to There is No Place Like Home.

Happy Show & Tell Friday!

Making a simple ribbon board

Vivianna suggested I post the directions for making a simple ribbon board. This is directly quoted from my Christmas blog, but as you will see, ribbon boards can be simply made for any season you like -- or for all seasons!

A simple ribbon board to display Christmas cards and other paper treasures

As I've mentioned, I have a nice collection of vintage and antique Christmas cards, all given to me over the years -- oddly enough, by people who knew I used old Christmas cards in art projects with children in school and Sunday School. Many of these cards probably have no real value -- some of them have the backs removed, and many have had the signatures cut out. But they are valuable to me because they are so beautiful. For years I wanted to display them, but couldn't think how -- I didn't want to damage them further with tape or tacks or staples. I inherited a nice glass-topped desk, and displayed some of the cards under the glass. But I still wished I could display more of them -- to me, no matter how lovely a collection may be, if its beauty can't be shared with others, it's really not worth having. I know people who have treasures like this squirreled away in shoeboxes, and it's absolutely ridiculous because no one -- including the owner of the collection -- can enjoy them there.

So I came up with the idea of using a large ribbon board to display my vintage card collection. I made a very, very simple one, and it has worked well for quite a few holiday seasons now. I took a full sheet of foam core board and covered it with fabric. (You could use a holiday fabric, but I felt that a solid color would be the best background for the colorful variety of my cards, so I chose a plain dark green fabric.) Very simply, I cut the fabric a couple of inches larger than the board all around, placed the board face down on the fabric, neatly wrapped the excess fabric to the back of the board, and hot-glued it in place. To hang the board, I made a loop of festive red/green holiday cord, and hot-glued that to the back as well.

Next, I took lengths of red satin ribbon and tacked them diagonally across the board one way and then the other, gluing the ends of the ribbon to the back of the board. At the places on the front where the ribbons intersected, I used shiny brass tacks to hold the ribbons in place. All those ribbons made nice secure spaces in which to tuck my cards. I hung the board in my front entryway and it holds a great many of the cards in my collection -- the vintage cards are much smaller than the cards we send today. This card-filled ribbon board makes me happy every time I walk by it!


In fact, the idea worked so well for me that I made a second ribbon board in neutral colors -- using unbleached muslin for the fabric and ivory ribbon -- to hold the paper treasures I've collected for other seasons as well.

Here is my board decorated for St. Patrick's Day:
And here it is decorated for Easter:


Here is my summer ribbon board:
Ribbon board decorated for fall:
A better view of the fall ribbon board:

I know that ribbon boards are not a new idea, but I haven't seen any just like mine. I hope someone else will try this idea for a special collection of treasured paper items!

Show & Tell Friday for August 21

For show & tell today, I have just one thing to share, but I hope others will enjoy seeing this. It's a vintage juice carafe that was my grandmother's. I've had it for awhile but didn't use it because the lid was missing, and I didn't have a plastic lid the right size to fit. I can remember so often seeing this carafe in my grandmother's refrigerator filled with orange juice (or sometimes Tang®).

All summer I have been making raspberry or peach lemonade using herbal teabags, a small amount of sugar, and pink lemonade concentrate, plus water, or course. In this recipe, the teabags need to stand in cold water in the fridge for a number of hours. I use a gallon sun tea jar to store the gallon of raspberry lemonade in. But one day, I needed to get more teabags ready to steep, and the gallon jar still had raspberry lemonade in it. What to do? As I looked about for a suitable container to steep the teabags in, I spied the vintage carafe. The perfect solution!

The carafe has a circus parade theme. You can just see to the far left, the words "The Circus Parade" and see monkeys, and a clown on a bicycle.

This view shows a tiger in a circus wagon, as well as the same clown.

Here you can see a bareback rider and a seal, and, to the extreme left, an elephant on a pedestal.

I love the whimsical vintage look of this carafe. I have looked around a bit on eBay and elsewhere but have not seen another one just like this.

That is my very simple Show & Tell for today. To see what others have shared for Show & Tell Friday, head on over to There is No Place Like Home.

Happy Show & Tell Friday!

Lifting up my soul to God (part 2)

I promised that I would share the other verses and insights I found on lifting our souls up to the Lord. Truly, as I pray each morning, I do lift my soul up to Him in praise, adoration, confession, petition, and intercession.

The second verse I found was this one:

"Rejoice the soul of Thy servant; for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul." (Psalm 86:4)

Charles Spurgeon, in The Treasury of David, wrote: "I look for all my happiness in Thee only, and therefore, 'unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.'

"I know that the nearer I am to Thee the greater is my joy, therefore be pleased to draw me nearer while I am laboring to draw near. It is not easy to lift a soul at all; it needs a strong shoulder at the wheel when a heart sticks in the miry clay of despondency... but the Lord will take the will for the deed, and come in with a hand of almighty grace to raise His poor servant out of the earth and up to heaven."

Those of you familiar with The Treasury of David know that not all the writings in it are those of Spurgeon himself. Following his commentary on each psalm, he also has a section called "Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings" which quote other Bible scholars, pastors, etc. of his time and before. It is worth reading what these godly people wrote.

In the "Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings" for Psalm 86, Spurgeon quotes John Gill concerning verse 4:

"It [the phrase 'I lift up my soul'] denotes the devotion, fervency, heartiness, and sincerity of his prayer: the doing of it with a true heart, the lifting up of the heart with the hands unto God."

Isn't that wonderfully put? It was a blessing to me.

The third verse I found was this one:

"Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning: for in Thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee." (Psalm 143:8)

This, I know now, was actually the verse that came to my mind during my prayer time this week. It is a verse that I have memorized. I love this verse! It says so much about the Christian life in only 33 words. Someone has said (and I agree with them) that this verse could be the theme verse for every believer. Can you imagine how different things would be if every believer lived out this verse?

Concerning this verse, Spurgeon wrote: "When David was in any difficulty as to his way he lifted his soul towards God Himself, and then he knew that he could not go very far wrong. If the soul will not rise of itself we must lift it, lift it up to God.... Let us attend to David's example, and when our heart is low, let us heartily endeavor to lift it up... to the Lord Himself."

Let us be doing just that!

Lifting up my soul to God

 

Today I'm sharing this older post (actually a combination of two older posts) concerning lifting up our souls to God.  This little study was a great encouragement to me.  I hope these thoughts will encourage others, as well:

This morning as I began my prayer time, the phrase "I lift up my soul unto Thee" came to my mind. I felt in a very real way that I was lifting my soul up to God in prayer. I could not recall for sure what psalm these words are from, so I quickly looked them up in the concordance at the back of the Ryrie Study Bible I happened to be using. I found three verses with similar phrasing, though there may well be more. After I finished my quiet time, I decided to look at these verses in Spurgeon's Treasury of David. Here is the first one.

"Unto Thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul." (Psalm 25:1)

Spurgeon wrote: "See how the holy soul flies to its God like a dove to its cote. When the storm winds are out, the Lord's vessels put about and make for their well-remembered harbor of refuge."

I love both of the images that he uses -- the soul being lifted to God as a dove flies to its place of shelter, and a vessel fleeing from the storm to a familiar harbor. That is exactly how I feel.

Spurgeon continues: "It is but mockery to uplift the hands and the eyes unless we also bring our souls into our devotions. True prayer may be described as the soul rising from earth to have fellowship with heaven; it is taking a journey upon Jacob's ladder, leaving our cares and fears at the foot, and meeting with a covenant God at the top. Very often the soul cannot rise, she has lost her wings, and is heavy and earth-bound; more like a burrowing mole than a soaring eagle. At such dull seasons, we must not give over prayer, but must, by God's assistance, exert all our power to lift up our hearts."

Robert Mossom wrote in 1657: "Unto Thee in the fulness of Thy merits, unto Thee in the riches of Thy grace; unto Thee in the embraces of Thy love and comforts of Thy Spirit."
 
Originally, I took two posts to share the other verses and insights I found on lifting our souls up to the Lord. I decided to add the second post to this one now (September 2011) to make it simpler.   Truly, as I pray each morning, I do lift my soul up to Him in praise, adoration, confession, petition, and intercession.

The second verse I found was this one:

"Rejoice the soul of Thy servant; for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul." (Psalm 86:4)

Charles Spurgeon, in The Treasury of David, wrote: "I look for all my happiness in Thee only, and therefore, 'unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.'

"I know that the nearer I am to Thee the greater is my joy, therefore be pleased to draw me nearer while I am laboring to draw near. It is not easy to lift a soul at all; it needs a strong shoulder at the wheel when a heart sticks in the miry clay of despondency... but the Lord will take the will for the deed, and come in with a hand of almighty grace to raise His poor servant out of the earth and up to heaven."

Those of you familiar with The Treasury of David know that not all the writings in it are those of Spurgeon himself. Following his commentary on each psalm, he also has a section called "Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings" which quote other Bible scholars, pastors, etc. of his time and before. It is worth reading what these godly people wrote.

In the "Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings" for Psalm 86, Spurgeon quotes John Gill concerning verse 4:

"It [the phrase 'I lift up my soul'] denotes the devotion, fervency, heartiness, and sincerity of his prayer: the doing of it with a true heart, the lifting up of the heart with the hands unto God."

Isn't that wonderfully put? It was a blessing to me.

The third verse I found was this one:

"Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning: for in Thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee." (Psalm 143:8)

This, I know now, was actually the verse that came to my mind during my prayer time this week. It is a verse that I have memorized. I love this verse! It says so much about the Christian life in only 33 words. Someone has said (and I agree with them) that this verse could be the theme verse for every believer. Can you imagine how different things would be if every believer lived out this verse?

Concerning this verse, Spurgeon wrote: "When David was in any difficulty as to his way he lifted his soul towards God Himself, and then he knew that he could not go very far wrong. If the soul will not rise of itself we must lift it, lift it up to God.... Let us attend to David's example, and when our heart is low, let us heartily endeavor to lift it up... to the Lord Himself."

Let us be doing just that!

Show & Tell Friday for August 14

Here is my hutch decorated for late summer. The top shelf has stayed the same with a Proverbs 31:31 stitchery made by a friend, and two flower teapots for one from another friend.

The bottom shelf features, as usual, some of my treasured ironstone dishes from my mother's family, but with some summery additions like an eyelet runner, sunflowers, berries, ivy and a little bluebird dish. The two cookbooks are favorites from Gooseberry Patch. The little packet of tea was purchased on our last getaway up north, and the summery tag was made by a dear friend.

The other two shelves are decorated with a seashore theme. The topmost one holds seashell candleholders we made for my daughter's wedding, and also two special cards, a ferry schedule from 1970, shells, and some green sea glass.

The next shelf holds more shells, more cards, a large painted sand dollar from Florida, a small handpainted sand dollar done by one of my daughters, and some plain sand dollars from Maine. On the right is another candleholder we made for the wedding (9 years ago now) -- we frosted the glass, poured the candles, trimmed with gold mesh and seashell charms.

Lastly here is my hallway ribbon board filled with summer cards and tags.

And that is my simple Show & Tell for today. To see what others have shared for Show & Tell Friday, head on over to There is No Place Like Home.

Happy Show & Tell Friday!

A midday getaway

A week or so ago, Mr. T had a day where there was no work. He didn't find this out until that morning, and had already made his sandwiches the night before as he usually does. He did work around home in the morning, but we decided to take a picnic lunch to a nearby town where there are picnic tables and benches beside a beautiful lake. He brought his already-made sandwiches and I added chips and marinated fresh vegetables.

After lunch, we followed a path along the lake shore. We sat on a stone bench for awhile and just soaked in the beauty and tranquility.

The view from our bench. Can you spot the Indian on this little island?

The view to the left of our bench. So pretty.

I'm so thankful that God gives us these unexpected blessings in the midst of all our busyness and stress. Truly, He knows what we need and faithfully provides it.