the weight of lent

We just got back from Ash Wednesday service. In my life, Ash Wednesday has always been a meaningful and significant evening, solemn and thoughtful as we begin our 40 days of Lent, looking towards the cross, and what the death of Jesus means to those of us who believe in Him.

I recently saw a Lenten devotional book. It was on Climate Justice, and focused on caring for the earth. I'm all for good environmental stewardship, but I was so frustrated by how this devotional book missed the mark entirely. Lent is about the saving of souls. Not the saving of sea shores. Lent is about Christ coming as God with us, here to take on the very sins of man, to create in us clean hearts. Not to clean our rivers and streams.

Tonight we sang O Sacred Head now Wounded and the words stilled my heart like a comforting friend. There is something to be said for tradition, for only singing particular songs during this season of contemplation and deep gratitude. For me, the lyrics below are what Lent is all about.

computer tips and tricks

Are you ready for another Computer Shortcut? Because I think you're going to like this one. You know why? Because Rory LOVES this one. He was so excited to share it with me.

You know when you are trying to cut and paste from a website into a word document and all of the formatting is messed up, tables end up screwing up your spacing and the font, size and margins is just a mess? Yes?!! This annoys you too?!! (see, I knew you'd be excited about this one!)

Here's what you do: highlight and copy as usual. And then when you go to paste into your word document you hit control ALT and the letter v (usually you would hit just control 'v', but the key to this trick is hitting ALT at the same time). A little box will pop up and you politely tell Microsoft Word, "Unformatted Text" by clicking on that option. And then you take a deep breath because you don't have to spend the next eight minutes trying to get the selected text to match your document.

Genius!

fabric flowers

I am inspired. I took what I learned on Saturday night from Donna Downey and went to make it my own. Sunday was a perfect day watching the Olympics as Rory napped on the couch beside me as I hand stitched these colorful flowers. I felt very domestic!

I had a vision of this little art piece in my mind, sketched in out on paper and it turned out exactly how I had envisioned it (although I am planning to add a few more leaves...) The buttons on the flowers are from my Aunt Jane...they were my Grandma Harrington's and I love that I am able to use them like this.

Donna has a fabric flower tutorial on her website. You can watch it here. These flowers are so simple, and turn out so stinkin' adorable! I've got a few more ideas sketched out, and can't wait keep on playing.

Canvas Art

The first class I took with Donna Downey was called, "Elegant Garden." This class was full of new techniques and I can't wait to start making my own creations based on her stunning ideas. I mapped out the basic steps of how we created this layout below. And for the record, I am in LOVE with the fabric flowers. I have many ideas of ways I want to use these...

I used the picture of me and my niece, Mara, working hard at the balloon toss at the last Bredberg family reunion. I love this pictures because we are working so hard just handing the balloon back and forth and everyone else was ten feet apart at this point :)

the great donna downey...

Well, I met Donna! And she was wonderful. I had no idea how many people would be taking these classes, and as it turned out, the class before mine was filled, but in my two workshops there were only six and then nine people! DREAM COME TRUE! It was low-key, calm and filled with fun conversation. I actually had written her a bit of fan mail, taking my opportunity just to tell her I appreciate her art, assuming that I would never get to just talk to her!

I can't believe how much I learned in her workshops. I feel like it may take many days to cover all that I want to pass along...because I want to share what I learned and hopefully inspire you too. Speaking of Inspire, Donna has a weekend retreat called Inspired. And based on all I learned in this evening of jam packed creative ideas, I would try to get there if you're anywhere near North Carolina in May...

I'm going to share what I learned all week long, so get ready for a beautiful and inspired* week!