stand firm

Have you ever felt like Satan was on your door-step and just wouldn't stop knocking, even pounding, on your door? 

One day, a year or so ago, we heard and saw what Satan was wanting to do to our family. The day after, I woke up feeling very depressed and felt like I couldn't get out of bed. I lay there praying, pleading, begging God to remove this from our family. I finally had enough, I needed to get my mind in a different place. So I decided to pick up my phone and check out Pinterest. I had to have something that was mindless. The very first picture on my Pinterest feed was this scripture -- (Don't tell me God can't use anything and everything, even a phone app.)

"You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions, stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you...do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out and face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you." 2 Chronicles 20:17

I knew this was His promise to me. I took that verse and wrote it on everything. I wrote it on my bathroom mirror so I would see it when I got up in the morning and when I went to bed at night. I wrote it on the blackboard that hangs in our home. I wrote it on a post-it note and put it on my computer so that I would see it while I worked. Daily I was reminding myself of His Word, His promise.

He also gave me the scripture in Ephesians 6 - Put on the full armor of God. I knew that is what He was telling me to do when He said to take up your positions. He was telling me to put on my armor which is His armor.

Also through this ordeal, the Lord gave me a word and that word was suddenly. I saw it in Bible verses. I heard it in teachings. I read it in books. This is one of the quotes that the Lord sent to me, 

"God says that He has already spoken to the right people. He has already lined up the healing, the freedom. It's going to happen suddenly." 

The word suddenly was all over the place and I knew that it was for us. And when the end came it felt like it ended suddenly!

We took up our positions. We continued to pray everyday. I dug deep into His 
Word. 

Looking back, I realize that the Lord answered my prayer, my pleading, my begging on that first day. He answered me suddenly with His Word - you will not have to fight this battle.

We also had others who were fighting for us through all of this. Many of our friends and family were praying hard right along with us. I saw and heard things that I know could only have been from God. 

A year later here we are. This battle is over. The Lord was, is and always will be victorious. 

I have learned so much about my faith and who He is and I will not stop praising Him, I will tell the world of this victory, and what mighty things He can do.

DIY Chalkboard Lettering

The Preacher and I were sitting, watching TV one evening. Well he was watching TV and I was scrolling through Pinterest. I came across a Pin (click here to see the pin) that I thought was very interesting, so I clicked on the Visit button to see what it was all about. It was titled DIY Perfect Chalkboard Lettering. On the site (click here to visit the site) she had a video of how to transfer lettering to a chalkboard.

I wanted to try out this new technique, but I had to think of something to write on a chalkboard. Then it came to me. Our church is in the beginning stages of a new building project and the committee had used Ephesians 2:21-22 for their scripture. Also, they are using one of the walls at the church to display pictures and things of interest. I knew that I could hang the final product on that wall.

I thought I would share with you how I did it. First, I decided to paint an old canvas that I had, with chalkboard paint. You can get the paint at any hardware store.

I typed out the scripture verse that I wanted on my computer and picked out the different fonts and enlarged it as I thought would be best for the canvas. I then printed them out onto regular copy paper.

Second, you cut out your words and fit them onto your canvas (you can do this on a piece of wood also) to make sure that everything fits.

In the above picture I had placed each word down with a piece of tape.

After you have your words exactly where you would like them, take each one off one at a time. Turn the paper over and with a piece of white chalk rub the back of the paper making sure to get it over all of the lettering.

When you have the paper completely rubbed down with chalk, place it back onto your canvas/board taping each one down so that they won't move around on you during the next step.

Next take a pencil or pen and outline all of the letters. This will transfer the lettering onto the black chalkboard.

After you have all of your lettering transferred take off all of the papers and go over all of the lettering with a chalk marker.  

I found my markers at Michaels

After you have gone over all of the lettering with your marker you can take a soft, dry cloth and rub off any of the excess chalk.

 And then you are done! And here is the finished product on the wall at our church.

If I have completely confused you, please email me with any questions you might have or click on the above link to see the original site where I found this technique.

Love from the Preacher and I

Pinterest Success

I found this ecard on Pinterest and immediately pinned it to one of my boards! I feel like this is me. It just seems like I find things on Pinterest and then some one will start a conversation about that exact thing!

This past week I had a Pinterest success. You know that sometimes you try out one of the homemade cleaning solutions or some other homemade thing and it just doesn't work. Well this time it was a success. 

I had found this Pin from Buzzfeed. I actually had not pinned it to any of my boards at the time but it was still in the back of my mind, just waiting for the right moment to come back to the front.

One day the Preacher and I were doing some spring cleaning throughout the house and he had asked me if I knew where some cleaning solution was. Well my first thought was, "It's under the kitchen sink." So I opened the doors under the sink and I had to pull out just about everything until I found what he was needing.  I decided that I would clean out that space right then and there. Whatever I was doing would just have to wait because this was a mess.

This is when this pin came out of the back to the front of my mind. I knew I had an extra suspension curtain rod stored somewhere in the house. I hunted it down and I began to reorganize. 

It was a success! The only thing that I recommend, if you so choose to do this, is to place a block of wood under each end of the curtain rod. When placing this many bottles on it, no matter how tight I got it, it would fall. The Preacher helped me out with that project. Now it works perfect. 

 Here is a picture of the space below our sink. I now enjoy getting something out from under here because everything is organized!

Love from the Preacher and I

A Pinterest Project

The Preacher and I have had a very emotionally rough month. April has certainly been a big roller coaster ride, and because of that it has been very hard to even think about sitting down at the computer and writing something profound or lofty, that means something. Maybe, at a later date, I will post more about some of the emotions that we have been going through.

So today I thought I would post something a little light-hearted, a Pinterest Project. 

Before

The Preacher and I have been working very hard at cleaning our house, deep cleaning the house. While cleaning the upstairs loft, I discovered that our cat has left scratch marks in some of the post on the railings. She enjoys getting as far up in the air as she can and on the railing post in the loft she can look down on us. She loves it up there.

Well, I knew I couldn't leave it like that, so I turned to Pinterest. I searched for a DIY product that would hide the scratches and here is the recipe that I found: 3/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup vinegar, mix well and apply with a rag. (To see the actual pinterest post just click on the recipe.)

The only oil I had was olive oil, and that worked just fine.

After

I rubbed it on all of the scratch marks and although it didn't magically remove them, it did soften the appearance of the marks. I am very pleased with the results. Here are the before and after pictures.

I hope you have enjoyed this little Pinterest tip. 

I did try one other Pinterest project while cleaning the house, maybe I'll post that on another day.

Well I hope you have a blessed weekend!

Love from the Preacher and I

Bible Art Journaling - A New Adventure

For 19 years I have been a scrapbooker. I have loved the art of scrapbooking since the first time I put an adhesive square on the back of a picture and stuck it on decorative paper to create a page memorializing our family's life together. I have grown in this art form, right along with the growth of the industry. Always trying new techniques and materials.

My next adventure came when I discovered art journaling. I had found an old ledger book at an auction, and I began to collect the supplies for art journaling and I was hooked. If you're not familiar with this type of art, just type in 'art journaling' into the keyword search box on Pinterest or YouTube and there you will see so many examples. 

Then in December of last year I discovered painting on canvas. As a Christmas present to a friend, I signed us up to take a painting class. I had so much fun that I have taken 2 more classes and I'm beginning to try my own creations at home. The preacher likes to show off my paintings to everyone who visits. He calls me an artist but there's something daunting about that label.

Now to tell you about my newest adventure in Bible Art Journaling. I had found a pin on Pinterest by Shanna Noel and I found what she had done in her Bible so fascinating. (Again, if you are not familiar with this, go onto Pinterest or YouTube.) The Bible she was using was an ESV translation by Crossway. It has a 2" margin on the left and right sides for note taking. But what Shanna did was so much more than taking notes -- she used those margins to art journal. How awesome is that?! Reading the Word of God and art journaling? Perfect!

I was a little hesitant about starting this new venture, but one day I saw on Facebook a picture of a Journaling Bible. A friend had posted pictures of her first entry in her new Bible. I commented back to her and she, knowing my love of scrapbooking, encouraged me to start.

Now I have begun my own ESV Journaling Bible and I love it! (I found this Bible on Amazon.) I even found a Facebook Group dedicated to this art form, so many women loving the Word and expressing that love through their art. 

I take notes each Sunday during the preacher's sermon, writing down keywords that stand out to me within the scripture. Then sometime during the week I'll go back in my Bible and enter these words in the 2" margin next to the scripture we studied. 

I am having so much fun with my new adventure - Bible Art Journaling!

Do you love to take notes, do you love to highlight your scriptures, then be sure to check into this Bible. You do not need to do anything 'artsy', it's just fun expressing what you feel while reading a scripture.

Love from the preacher and i!

DIY Project Turns into Chaos

      Why is it that every time I see a project on Pinterest or even on an HGTV type show, I think, “That’s a great idea! “That won’t take long to do, maybe a couple of hours.”

     Well that’s exactly what happened this past week.  For a while now I've been looking at the shelves that are in the kitchen of the preacher and I and I've been thinking that they needed a face-lift. I began searching Pinterest and the website, Houzz.com, for ideas. I finally decided that they needed painted, I needed to add some color to our kitchen.

     So last Monday, I went to the hardware store and bought some paint. Then I took everything off of the shelves and placed everything all over the kitchen bar and table. 

Then I cleaned the shelves. I then discovered that I didn't have any sand paper but I found some steel wool pads. After scrubbing the shelves down with the steel wool, then cleaning them up, I began to apply the first coat. Unfortunately, I was only able to paint the top shelf and a little of the bottom of that same shelf. Something came up and I had to stop.

     Now during all of this, the preacher was not too thrilled with my determination to paint. He really wasn't on board and I could tell he wasn't wanting to help in any way. But I thought that’s okay, I can do this!

     Well the next day I discovered that the paint just began to bubble and shrink! Oh no!, that got me upset, but I was determined to get these shelves painted. So I went back to the hardware store and bought some sandpaper. I sanded all of the shelves really well, this wasn't going to happen again. While I was sanding the preacher was teaching at the local college and when he came home he was not too pleased with the mess I had made.

      During the week the shelves just sat there, not getting a coat of paint on them. That's what happens when you have to work, go to several meetings, and then being so tired at night you just can't do one more thing.

I saw this ecard on facebook this same week and thought what perfect timing to see this.

     On Friday of this week I had had enough of this DIY project.  I just wanted to stay home and get this done, I was tired of the mess in the kitchen! I was tired of the chaos that this project had created in my home. So I began to get upset, the melt-down was happening. Then my sweet preacher told me that he had two meetings that day but he would come home and help me get this project knocked out that day. Yay! I began to feel better, I felt like the end was in sight!

     And we did it! We got the shelves painted (it took four coats). We also decided to pull out some old paint and finish painting the hallway that didn't get done when we painted the kitchen and dining room several months ago. The hallway looks so much better and brighter!

     I love the way the shelves turned out! Now that they are done I've been cleaning and rearranging kitchen drawers. The preacher says “That’s enough, no more!”

     I just can’t help it, when something gets in my head I can’t stop thinking about it until it’s done.

     What DIY projects have you done lately and how did they turn out?

                                                      Love from the Preacher and I

New Name, New Post, New Beginnings

I have decided to give this blog thing another try. 

I saw that someone on Pinterest had pinned the picture of the butcher block table the preacher and I had made, and I had posted the pictures of the table here on my blog. So that made me check back on my blog. I couldn't believe it had been that long since I had posted anything. So it got me thinking.....let's try this again.

My old address of my blog was Linda's basement scraps and it is no longer relevant. My son came up with the name because, at the time, I had a scrapbooking room in our unfinished basement. After my mother-in-law passed away, we all went through a bit of depression (she lived with us at the time). Going down into the basement was not something I enjoyed any longer. So I began bringing a few things upstairs. Little by little, I have moved things into baskets, boxes, just anywhere I can. I now am working from my kitchen table. Back to the place where I began scrapbooking 19 years ago. I enjoy it more, I'm with my family, not alone in a dingy basement.

I have changed the name to The Preacher and I. This new name is more generic. I have decided to post more than just scrapbooking and crafts. I would like to post more of my thoughts on Bible Studies, scriptures, life events, etc. I will also post about my new adventures in art journaling, painting, and scrapbooking too.

Hopefully I can get on here two to three times a week. I did enjoy blogging before and I have missed it.
I don't have any followers at this point, but that's okay. Sometimes it's good to just write things down.

If you are reading this, I hope you will continue to look me up once in awhile. If you see something on here that you like, be sure to leave me a comment, pin it, or you can like me on facebook.

So here's to a new beginning!