Why I Do What I Do

 

Not too long ago I started to notice that most everything I do has something to do with teaching people

The Word of God.

Homeschooling my girls

Teaching a Bible class for 3rd – 5th and 6th – 8th grade girls

Working in Women’s Ministry

Making Bible Memory Verse Pillows

Writing a book to help scripture memorization, Growing Girls in Grace

Speaking at conferences

Writing a Bible Study for 6th - 8th grade girls

Please do not read this list and think I am a deep thinking, theology major or something… because

I AM NOT

I am a simple girl with a heart for God and that is all!

Simple is good though.  In the list of all the things that I do, you will only find simple ideas.  For a moment that bothered me and the enemy tried to make me feel insecure about what I do and feel that it was not worthy.  Each time Satan would try this I would just give it to God and pray.  Each time God would tell me it was enough, I was enough.  Then one day during an attack God brought to my mind that His Word is enough.  Did you hear that?

His Word Is Enough

Well, duh!  How had I missed that?  His word is enough and there is not one thing I could add to make it better.  What a relief!  This left me with a renewed passion to push forward into this calling He has for me.  I will teach, write Bible studies, make gifts and speak at conferences about God’s Word.  You will find that I mix in some fun and creative ways to learn The Word but you will not find many words from me because…

His Word Is Enough

His Word is life changing and life sustaining, it is hope for a hopeless world and we need to know it.

Years ago I read Corrie ten Boom’s life story The Hiding Place and was in awe of all that her family went through during WWII (concentration camp) but I was more in awe of how they handled all the adversity.  They lived lives of great faith in times of great persecution.  They lived the way we all hope we would when our faith is tested.  Their faith stood strong and they helped and encouraged others and brought many to Christ through their example. This caused me to question what was different about this family.  What I saw was a family that had a genuine relationship with God and not a Sunday religion.  This family listened daily as the father read aloud from the Bible, they watched a mother with failing health continue to serve without complaint, and they saw others needs being met with their family's stretched thin finances.

This family knew God’s Word, they believed God’s Word and they lived out God’s Word.  When adversity came they had a real relationship with God and their faith stood up to the test.  This is the desire of my heart for myself, my family and everyone God puts in my path.

I pray that you will have a burning desire to know God, know His Word, believe His Word and act out His Word.  So that in future times of adversity your faith will stand strong.

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the

testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;

the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the

commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of

the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be

desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter

also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping

them there is great reward.  Psalm 19:7-11

19:7-11

Charity

Salt Dough Ornaments and Gift Tags

I am so excited to share a great Christmas craft project today.  Salt dough ornaments and gift tags.  For pennies you can make a great gift for your family and friends.  I am using the ones my girls and I made as gift tags that the recipients can later use as an ornament.

All you need to get started is

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup salt

1/2 water

1,2,3 easy peasy!!!

Toss it all in the mixer for a few minutes.

Once it is all combined

Kneed until smooth

I separated mine, so each girl could have one.

Roll the dough ball out on wax paper

Now for the fun part….

Grab a doily and press it into the dough with the rolling pin.

When you lift the doily off you will be left with a beautiful pattern.

Next grab a cookie cutter and cut out your ornaments.

Remove the dough from around your ornament shapes, lift and

place on a cookie sheet and poke a hole with a straw.

Cook at 200 degrees for 5-6 hours.

Take them out and let them cool.

Paint them white, start with the back.  After the back is dry, paint the front.

After the paint is dry apply glue to the front.

While the glue is still wet sprinkle with glitter.

Lightly wipe off the top, so that the glitter only sticks in the grooves.

After the glitter and glue has dried seal with a spray sealer.

Write on the back who the gift is to and from and run a ribbon through the hole.

Hang from your gift.

And give to your friends and family.

A simple gift that will become sentimental in the years to come.

Cha Cha

The Heartfelt Homeschool Memo Board

Hi ladies!  Hope you are having a wonderful Labor Day weekend.  I wanted to pop in quick and show you a project I finished last week.  I made cute memo board with our homeschool logo on it.  We are

The Heartfelt Homeschool

Trust me it did not come looking this cute.  It came from Goodwill for a couple of dollars.

It was dark and missing a hook.

I got busy and painted it cream and found a pattern I liked and printed it off.

Now stick with me because this next step is all high tech.....

I rubbed my pencil over the entire back of the printed paper.

Turned it over and traced the pattern onto my memo board.

I painted the pattern green and in the same way as above I trace Heartfelt onto the board and painted it orange.  At this point I was sick to death of this method and drug out some stickers and placed them on for "the" and "homeschool"

I traced around the stickers

and painted them black. 

Now our school has a sign, it makes us happy.  Plus it is a great place to keep up with some of my sewing notions.

I am linking at

Southern Hospitality
Home Stories A to Z
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
The Shabby Creek Cottage

The First Day of School

Well....

Today was the day!

Our first day of school.  We have been preparing for this day for a couple of weeks,  cleaning the desk, switching last years books for shiny new ones, making schedules and today it was finally our day.  I love being a homeschool mom.  I love that it is me who gets to watch there eyes open wide when they learn something new, I even love the hard moments (love not like) because those victories  are so sweet to watch.   We celebrated our first day with a special waffle dinner.  In the morning we will be up bright and early and go to our homeschool "school"  we attend a school one day a week with about 1,000 other homeschool students.  Yes I did mean to type 1,000 isn't that amazing.  The girls are excited to see their friends and teachers.  Grace my 12 year old will be taking Ballet, Chemistry, Grammar, Literature, Movie Making and she will assist in an American Girl class.  Faith my 8 year old will be taking Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Chemistry, Art, American Girl, and Ukulele.  They should have a very fun year.  I will be teaching a class called Growing Girls In Grace and will sharing more about my class in the next few weeks.  So if you ever wonder what we are doing on Tuesday - now you know. 

Let's move on to the pretty pictures!  

Our Homeschool sign, I will be sharing more about it later this week.

Sister Love

My favorite sound in our house is the two of you giggling together, it brings a smile to my face everytime.

As I am writing this I can hear the giggles coming from the bedroom as you have one of your regular spend the night partys together.  Always remember to giggle together.

Grace, how is it that you are this grown up?  Every time I look at you I am just blown away.  You are a beautiful girl but the great thing is you heart is even more beautiful.  I love that you choose to serve over play so often, God has BIG plans for you and I can't wait to see them play out.

Faith, where has my baby gone?  I love that your hands are still little girl chubby, it makes my heart melt every time I look at them.  Your desire to live life to the fullest is so cool to watch you have the passion it takes to change things.  Your passion is going to be put to great use for the kingdom of God.

I am so blessed to be a mother,

I love my life!



Sentimental Sunday #33, A new direction for my blog

Welcome to Sentimental Sunday, my favorite day of the week. The day we all gather together and share what we are sentimental about. It can be anything from an item in your home passed down by a special someone or just a few sweet words about something that has touched your heart this week, the goal is to take a moment and reflect.

Today

I have decided to be sentimental about this little corner of the online world that I enjoy. 

Almost two years ago when I decided to start this blog it was on a whim, what else does one do when then are about to meet Ree in person (read about it here  ), today I cherish this space.

It was fun to write about meeting Ree and Christmas was just around the corner so why not show off my home all dressed up.  Then we were redoing the girls rooms so it was a great place to document the process.

Hubby and I have lived in two house before this one and have done many DIY projects on both but never documented the process, suddenly with this blog we had the perfect place to keep up with all that we do.  I love that we have a place to tell that story and that our grand kids will be able to look back at it. During all of this I seemed to have fallen into the "you must have a niche" to blog trap.  I became a DIY/CRAFT blog.  I enjoy each of these things but they are only a tiny part of our lives.  I want this blog to be a reflection of our whole lives.  I started to realize there needed to be a change when Sentimental Sunday started to be the only post I enjoyed writing because it was something that came naturally to me.  I was starting to find my voice in those post.

Then I started my shop and I loved making items that touched peoples hearts and it started to become clear that I my blog was changing.

I was becoming

The Heartfelt Home

So in a brainstorming session with Gina we/she came up with the new name.  I rushed to buy the .com without thinking through what would change immediately here.  After 2 hours on the phone  with Go Daddy and Enom (those poor guys were wishing they had not been the ones to answer my phone call!) I was finally directing correctly, Gina made me a new header quick so it would make sense and I got busy securing all other social media in this new name and started my mental plan of action for the future of this blog.

So that is where things stand today

Sit Relax and Read
is no longer

The Heartfelt Home
has taken it's place

Creative Kristi is working on a new blog design for me, say a prayer for her because I might drive her crazy before it is all over, haha.  Then we will begin work on my New Shop yes you heard (read, whatever....detail) me correctly.

Cha Cha's Treasures
is soon to be no longer

my new shop will be
The Heartfelt Home
(you can click on the above to see the new shop)
Easy to remember, huh?

For the next few days you can still shop Cha Cha's Treasures, you can even get 30% off by using the coupon code moving.  I am slowly moving items over to the new shop and will be adding a new line of vintage inspired kitchen products and a few true vintage finds.

Where else can you now find me

email
theheartfelthome@gmail.com

Twitter
Heartfelt_Home
BTW this is my favorite form of social media,
come follow me and lets chat.

Facebook
you can like my page
The Heartfelt Home
this is a great place to get sneak peeks to upcoming post,
some behind the scenes action and
some random things in our lives.
It is also a great place for us to talk back and forth about projects.


Pinterest
Heartfelt Home
This is the place to see what inspires me and my projects.

So are you asking yourself what all of this means for the future of this blog?  Probably not but I will tell you anyway!
-There will still be plenty of DIY projects because we still have plenty to do.
-Sentimental Sunday will still be here and have a renewed energy behind it, sorry to all of you who I have left hanging the last few weeks.
-I will be sharing about homeschooling and the homeschool class I teach.  I would appreciate it if any of you who homeschool could share some link parties with me, I would love to meet more homeschool bloggers.
-I hope to write about my faith more, this one frightens me because of my inadequacies but all things are possible through Christ who strengthens me.
-I still love to cook and want to be more consistent about sharing recipes and products I love.
-There is also a side of me that I have never talked about on this blog-a secret-
I have a cute little framed piece of paper that says I have permission to do hair in the state of Georgia.  Are you shocked or had you guessed?  The comments and emails I get the most of when there is a picture of me on here is about my hair.  Well.....
guess what ladies?
I am going to start sharing some "hows" with you!
-There will be plenty of crafts
-And don't worry I will also continue to be thrifty because lets face it I am cheap.

So what do you think?
I would love to have your thoughts and which subjects you prefer me to ramble about.

Thanks for supporting me and my family in this online adventure.


So what a you sentimental about this week?
Grab the button below and link up.

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How To Build A Teenage Girls Wardrobe From Scratch Without Spending A Fortune, Part 2

I am back again this week to let you know how we are doing in our clothing challenge.

If you missed the first weeks post you can read it here.

We had a good first week and found a few nice pieces.

A brand new pair of jeans

Cutest skirt ever

Another pair of cute jeans.

And finally a sweater I found in the back of my closet that I never wear, it fits her very nice.

Up next we are going to visit a local thrift store that runs a 50% off sale every Monday, we are crossing our fingers that it will be a good day.

So have you found and great deals on

Back To School Clothing?

Our Homeschool Room

Well Lovelies

it is that time of year again,

the time where we are gearing up for another school year.

I thought I would give you a look at our

School Room

so you would know where our days will be spent.

This is our school desk, we built it ourselves.

If you are interested in seeing the process you can go here, here, and here

My favorite school supply to open each year is a new box of crayons

What is you favorite new school supply?

A few of the books the girls will be reading this year.

My supply side

Can you tell I have a love of buttons?

The best part of our mantel this Summer has been the sweet little birds nest we found.

The basket on top has all of our read aloud books and our Bible study and the vintage suitcases (from my childhood) store some of my sewing supplies.

You can tell I get in and out of the the bottom one often, I wish I had closed the latches.

The vintage picnic baskets have the girls sewing supplies in them.

I wish I could show the other wall with a pretty camel back sofa, but the sofa is sitting in the basement....

waiting... waiting.. on me to get the nerve up to either try to recover it myself or pay someone else to do it.

Maybe next year, ha.