Tag Archives: digital card crafting kit

Elegant Easter Egg Favor Boxes and Pillow Box Purse Set

CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO EASTER EGG FAVOR BOXES IN STORE  $4.98

While I’m working on kits I got on a roll this morning!  These Elegant Easter Egg Favor Boxes are just adorable!  They’re the perfect size to fill with a few Hershey’s Kisses or other Easter candies.  The three eggs work beautifully together and can add an elegant touch to place settings at a family dinner, a women’s Easter brunch or other Easter gathering.  Add your own tags to them for place settings or to add all of the children’s names in a classroom.

There are photographic instructions included so it’s very easy to figure out how to put these together and even an older child could do these.  Cutting and scoring are at a medium difficulty skill level.

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY:  Matt 11:28-30   “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  NIV

DEVOTIONAL:  Continuing on yesterday’s theme — when we are spiritually dry there are a few common reasons.  Sometimes we are in sin, sometimes we are disappointed with God or our perception of God’s “fairness,” sometimes we are caught up in the world around us and sometimes we’re caught up in worrying.  I’ll go over each of these in successive devotionals, but today I’m going to talk about the most common reason we get spiritually dry and that is we grow weary.

Weary, tired, exhausted, overwhelmed — these are the most common words I hear in my daily life when I ask people how they’re doing.  I bet you hear it/say it too.  We’re all doing too much, in too little time with little or no rest to restore ourselves.

Did you notice the “rest” in “restore.”  There is no restoration of energy without rest and there’s no shortcut to being refreshed.  Unfortunately you can’t plug yourself in like an electric car when you go to sleep at night to recharge in a few hours — it takes many consistent nights of adequate sleep to restore our bodies and with it our souls.

Jesus understands our weariness.  He wants us to come to Him, give him our weariness and burdens and find His rest.  I’ve discovered over time that His rest isn’t a magical formula, it’s a dramatic change about the way we approach all of life.  Are the tasks/assignments that you are stressing over, actually coming from the Lord or have you taken them upon yourself?  If the latter, His rest might come as you let go of the commitment.

Jesus pulled away from the crowds and sought communion with His Heavenly Father — even when it meant leaving the hurting masses.  Do you “leave” your family from time to time to go away and spend time with the Lord?  Most of us can’t physically get away, but we can go into our rooms each day and spend time seeking the Lord AND LEARN FROM HIM HOW TO FIND REST.

Start your time with Him with a simple prayer and ask Him to help you find out the root reason that you are weary and discouraged.  Then ask Him to lead you to the scriptures that will speak to your need.  It can be as simple as looking up “weary” in a good concordance and following the trail of scriptures.  Then I find that “pray-reading” the scripture is a great way to take it into my own heart and give the Lord permission to do the work necessary to change my heart.  The prayer at the end today is an example of how I like to “pray-read” the word.

If you are dry, or maybe you’re even in a long season of drought, you won’t feel restored over night.  You probably won’t feel different at all for quite a while, but I promise you, if you continue seeking His rest you will find it.  And with it you’ll find the refreshing rains of his living waters.  You’ll find the rains that bring forth the spring flowers.

PRAYER: Lord, you have commanded me to come to you when I grow weary and burdened.  I am so weary and dry right now.  I am so exhausted with carrying my burdens that I have come to you to find your rest.  Please show me what I need to do in my life.

You have told me that if I take your yoke upon my shoulders it will be a comforable and restful yoke.  My work will be less painfu, be more easily accomplished and lead to rest.  Help me to learn from you.  Teach me about where my life is out of balance and headed in a wrong direction and teach me what needs to be changed and perhaps more importantly, how to change it.

Thank you that you aren’t angry with my weakness, you understand.  You’re gentle and understanding and have a desire to lead me into your rest.  AMEN.

Elegant Easter Eggs Digital Clip Art Kit, New in Store Today

LINK TO ELEGANT EASTER EGGS KIT IN STORE  $4.98

I have often had requests over the years for an adult Easter set.  There are lots of little bunnies, chicks and easter eggs, but what do we give to an adult friend or family member?!  So this spring I set about painting some elegant Easter eggs for my own Easter use and this is the kit that resulted.

The front image is available two ways, as a completed card front and every item is available separately so you can make your own layouts.  There are fifteen pieces to this kit and that includes 3 papers, one card front, 5 eggs, the hanging cord and gold attachment, one ribbon, one border and one frame.

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY:  Jer 31:23-26  This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “When I bring them back from captivity, the people in the land of Judah and in its towns will once again use these words: ‘The LORD bless you, O righteous dwelling, O sacred mountain.’  People will live together in Judah and all its towns — farmers and those who move about with their flocks.  I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.”  At this I awoke and looked around. My sleep had been pleasant to me.
NIV

DEVOTIONAL: I love that scripture, “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.”

Do you feel dry in your spiritual life right now?  Are you weary?  Do you feel overwhelmed by the constant barrage of bad news on our economy?  Does the daily grind, grind even more when you are concerned about making ends meet or when you worry if you or a loved one will have a job tomorrow?

I have to answer “Yes” to a lot of the above questions.  I’ve been feeling dry and spiritually uninspired for a while and had to stop and think about why that was.  I realized a couple of things about myself that might apply to some of you as well.

I go in cycles.  I have long periods of great creativity and energy that are routinely followed by a short period of the blues.  This has been my history for decades, so I shouldn’t be surprised when the blues hit!  But I always am.  Rest is the key for recovery and resting in the Lord is especially key for me.

I work long hours at a career that I love.  Lots of times I find myself energized by the creativity, but over the period of weeks creating I will become physically depleted and guess what?  The spiritual being inside of me gets weakened and tired as well!

When I am worried, He commands me to rest in Him and to give those concerns over to Him.  When I feel dry and don’t feel like reading His word, that’s when I MOST NEED TO DO IT!  When I am weary and “blue” I find that I usually need to ignore my feelings for a while and do what I know is right no matter how it feels.

God is the same powerful, loving God whether I feel confident about that or not!  He’s still on the throne when the Dow is at 12,000 or if it dropped to 5,000.  The economy is so complex that no man can understand or control it, but God is in control of my personal economy and I have to trust Him to walk me through this season of fear and recession.

Oh yeah!  And one of the most wonderful things I’ve learned over the years is that God isn’t surprised or disappointed by my “blues!”  He isn’t upset with my human frailty, but He does want me to come to Him when I feel down.  He wants to comfort me and He can do that best through His word!

PRAYER:  Lord, sometimes I don’t even realize how weary I have become.  I also don’t realize how much that weariness impacts my sense of spirituality and closeness with you.  But you know this about us.  You know how frail our frame is and You have made a place of refreshing for us to come to no matter how we feel at the moment.

Help me Lord to remember to seek you through your word whether I “feel” close to you or not.  Help me to find comfort in you and draw from your strength when I feel weary.  Remind me that I need to REST — physically and spiritually.  AMEN