Shabby sweetness

Just a quick post (with several pictures :0) to show you the basket I painted a few weeks ago…and surprise, surprise…its not all white!  gasp.  I kinda surprised myself, actually.  But when I saw this idea on Pinterest (you can see what Donna did on The Decorated House blog here), I thought I’d try something a little different this time…and I love it!!  Since I had some mistinted paint I bought at Lowes for $5 a gallon (Woo Hoo!!), and it was a nice light blueish grey, I got to work!  First I mixed up some homemade chalk paint…

1/2 cup hot water

1/2 cup Plaster of Paris

1-1/2 cups Latex paint

Dissolve Plaster of Paris in hot water; mix into paint.  Now go paint something! 😉 

Here is the basket before she got her pretty coat.

It took 2-3 coats of the blueish grey paint before I got the coverage I wanted (you’ll notice I let a little of the original basket color peek through a little).  After the basket was dry, I painted a nice soft white over that- not heavy…kinda “dry brushed” it on.

I had fun playing with my logo…

Speaking of logo – tomorrow evening I’ll be driving about an hour south to hopefully get some help finishing up with some things on my blog…getting the comments hooked up, my logo in my header, and a few other things.  So hopefully that’ll all be done soon!!  I hope your itching to leave comments as much as I’m anxious to hear from you! 🙂

Now, I can’t close without a little word of encouragement.  I mean, painting baskets are fun – and I hope you find one and paint it! – but, lets just say, I want to give you a little something to put in the basket.

I have about 3-4 little slips of paper in my Bible that help mark different places that I’m reading (Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs).  They’re little reminders that I get to see often (I don’t know about you, but I need reminded…a lot…like, a whole lot!!), and though I don’t read them every single time I open my Bible to that certain spot, I do read them from time to time and each time they never cease to encourage me.

So tonight I wanted to share one of those bits of encouragement.  Its from the book In the Arena by Isabel Kuhn (my #1, all-time, favourite author!).  I have read and reread this book – I love it!

When any child of God decides to step out in absolute obedience to the will of God, there will be a frantic effort by the powers of darkness to block him.  Obstacles will spring up to hinder and discourage that one.  The possibility of obedience will seem more and more hopeless.  When things are the blackest and most discouraging is the very time not to give up.  This kind of namby-pamby surrender will be quickly swamped.  To keep looking at our difficulties will also swamp us.  We need to look resolutely away from the impossibilities and to the Lord.  His help will come, though often it cannot break through to us until the last moment.  It is very important that we be ready and prepared for action up to the last split second.  God does not miss even that split second.  He may seem to be delayed, but He will not be too late for the expectant soul waiting in active faith.

I hope this all makes sense…if you have any questions, you can email me by using the address in the “contact” tab.  I’d love to hear from you!!  Have a great week!!