Smash Journal Entry--Two (or Four) Cup Day

I am having such fun with my Smash Journal. I love having a place I can just randomly "discuss" and "illustrate" whatever is on my mind at the time--things I would not include in my ongoing scrapbooks. My Cricut makes it even more fun, giving me tons of images to choose from, to embellish my journaling!

On Mission

This week, a large chunk of my heart is in Nicaragua, where our son and granddaughter are on a mission trip. They will be helping to build a house for a family there, while sharing the Good News. Our son preached there this morning and will be leading devotional times for team members each evening during their week there. This is 18-year-old Tory’s first time out of the country, and with her heart already leaning towards mission work in her future, she expects this to be an especially meaningful week. As a grandmother, I have a bittersweet feeling about this experience in Tory’s life, but for sure, I have a special focus for my daily prayers for Mark and Tory this week.

SonSurf Beach Bash VBS

Our church is a "church plant," first launched to the public in September 2002. For some of our years, we have been "mobile," meeting in school buildings. We do have our own leased building now. Last year I directed our very first VBS, with 50 children and 25 workers. This was our second year, with 71 children and 30 workers. It was awesome!! Thursday is the special day where we emphasize why Jesus came to earth, died on the cross, and rose again. Our pastor (my son) shares what the Bible has to say and then gives the children the opportunity to speak with him (and me) individually, if they want to know more about becoming a child of God. As a result, ten children gave their hearts to Jesus. The entire week was an incredible blessing--and SO MUCH FUN!!

Smash Journal: A Randomness Unlike Me

While I get many “pats on the back” for my organization and structured way of doing things, my self-assessment reveals that there just might be a need for a tiny bit of reckless abandon and randomness to sneak in, every now and then. Maybe that’s why the first time I saw the little promotional video about the Smash Journal from K&Company, I was smitten. I do not need another “project” (duh), but this “arena” for randomly placing things just because I want to at that moment—I like that, and I don’t think of it as a project, and as my Smash Journal goes, I’m the one who counts!! (I’m liking this!)

At first it was hard for me to get started—being random does not come naturally for me. That’s why it’s good for me, I think. I have “stuck and smashed” things in a few pages now, and I have decorated the cover (it comes plain kraft-colored, and the journal I chose—Modern—has a black binding).

I am determined NOT to keep this little thing chronological or sequential. That’s almost impossible for me. But, the two pages I show here were completed 7/9 and 6/29, in that not-order. Yay for me!

For my crafting friends, here’s what I did for the cover: I inked the edges with Ranger Broken China. I cut the letters on my Cricut (Sesame Street font, blackboard), using grungeboard. I then inked the letters with Adirondack black pigment ink. I adhered the letters with Glossy Accents. The & and my initials are stamps. I used cut-outs from the Yummy Cartridge on my Cricut Imagine. The little tree and the saying are from stamps I got at Archiver’s. I colored the little tree stamp with Faber-Castell stamping markers, prior to stamping. The word “grow” is from some chipboard sayings I bought in the pre-Cricut days.

Sometimes there just needs to be something just for fun. That’s my randomness-unlike-me Smash Journal!

UPDATE: I didn’t like the way the ladybug was so disproportionate, so I replaced it with a cute little “Summer” word, cut from Imagine Enjoy the Seasons.

Just Trees

We had a terrible windstorm through our property this afternoon. The winds were straight-line winds, but did a lot of damage. We lost several trees. Some were downed in the cul de sac and in the entry to our drive. Our son and grandson came out and helped Russell with cutting up and stacking the brush so that the street and driveway were passable. These are pictures I took of the damage close to our driveway and cul de sac; several other trees are down on our five acres. The two rootwads represent trees that were totally uprooted by this wind. The larger rootwad is larger than our Mule (golf cart size). The tree was huge.

We are thankful it was just trees and not the house, or us. However, we are sorry to see so much damage to our woods that we love.