Project Ecuador...Journals for Some Awesome Young Ladies

As I wrote in my earlier blog entry, my husband left this morning with a team of leaders and students from our church on a missions trip to Ecuador. As I began praying for this trip and especially the girls that were going, I wanted to give them something special for the trip to let them know they were being prayed for. The journals came to life in my mind months ago and I began to make them about a week ago. After gathering my thoughts and ideas, the work was all fun and went quite smoothly! The journals are actually slip covers for composition notebooks. I wanted the girls to be able to take the cover off when they finish the notebook and use it on another.

I graduated early from highschool and was able to go on a short term missions trip to Mexico with the late Ken Hannah from Moody Bible Institute and a team of other adults and students. It was one of the most amazing experiences for me. For a shy, quiet girl, it stretched and challenged me. I was amazed how the Lord could work even with the language barrier and I actually formed friendships even though I could not communicate in their language. We did construction work for the school we were staying at to bring them water, and ran some VBS type programs for for the children in the area. One thing that I treasure the most from that trip is the journal I kept! Every once in a while I come across it and am reminded of the work the Lord had started in my life. I am reminded of his faithfulness and it always brings me hope and excitement! So, that is where the journal idea came from, blessings that the Lord had given me to pass on. It made me want to find my journal from mexico, but i couldn't bring myself to ask Matt to crawl up in the attic before he left to find it, I do not think he stopped moving for 2 weeks straight.

For those of you creatives who follow my work, I thought I would post pictures of each of the journals, they are very fun to make, not to complicated, and a great gift for anyone whom likes to write or doodle.

Blooms of the Day

I love walking outside every morning to find new beauty in bloom! Our yard has a long way to go as far as landscaping, but I am really enjoying some of the simple pleasures new and old. So, I have made it a priority to capture this years beauty with my camera.



Clemitis has got to be one of my very favorite! I planted this the year we moved in and it is one of the very few markers I have of the years we have been here. It is one of the very first to bloom. I have since then, planted two more of these in our garden, and will probably continue to plant more each year until I have a yard of purple! It is such a pretty back drop to everything else.




We planted some new rose bushes behind our garage this year and laid to rest some of our kids little critters that have been in deep freeze waiting to be buried(don't ask:) But these roses should be extra lovely.