What do you see?

I am not sure why when you get older your eye sight starts fading. It's sometimes annoying that unless you find those glasses you really can't see what is going on. The solution is to buy a whole lot of those glasses and put them all in strategic places so that no matter where you are there is a pair you can find quickly.

What I find annoying, my little friends find most fascinating.

That's Anya, and her little brother Gabriel. 

Anya likes to play teacher. I am sure the glasses seem appropriate for that activity.

Gabriel is the student, and doesn't he look studious while sporting this fashionable pair.  I would have to say he likes the glasses even more than Anya.  After a visit recently I entered my bedroom only to find a toy airplane beside a large pile of glasses piled  high on my counter. I hadn't seen a good number of those glasses in a long while. Not sure where he rounded them all up from but he must have a good eye for finding them. I left them there for several days and laugh out loud every time I passed them by.

As you can see, I have no ordinary glasses, I actually go out of my way to find the most extraordinary ones. The thought was that if they were too wild and crazy, my husband, Harold would leave my glasses alone! Well, actually that does not work, when glasses are needed any old pair will work, or so it seems. That and he doesn't get embarrassed easily.

It's also important to have the right glasses for the right activity. You can't use the same glasses for the computer that you use for reading, or sewing, so not only do we have different styles but different strengths. 

HERE I must also enter a WARNING! Do not ever  wear your glasses when you bathe! Especially if you have a weak heart, for  you might discover some things you did not want to see!

Whether you are young or old , wear glasses or not, your eyesight is a precious thing. 

If only there were glasses you could buy that would give you a heavenly vision, oh the things we could see. I've never seen an angel, I've never looked at the face of Jesus, but I know someday I will.

Until then I will be content to see His face in those I love and enjoy right here on earth.  Every day He gives us glimpses of heaven if we are not to blind to see them.

 I hope today you will see a little bit of heaven in your world..

A Party full of Grace

Present Grace had their Open House craft party to introduce some of our  projects we have been working on and to fellowship with other crafty friends.

Guests signed in and entered the drawing for one of our tote bags as a door prize. And the winner was..... Aurora!

The party offered our guest a chance to view a lot of our new product line which is mainly featured in our ETSY storehttp://presentgrace.etsy.com

 

And we had big bags and  little bags....

 We even had backpack bags....

the craft room was tidied and made ready for guest.

Instructions for the craft project were posted and baggies were filled with supplies to make cute flowers that could be worn or clipped to a bag.

 

Here are Peggy, Carolina, and Michelle,  they cut and sewed, they drank and ate and Voila,

They had Flowers! 

That's Aurora on the right. She not only went home with this special pillow she had ordered but she won the door prize.

It was a great time to laugh and to fellowship and a wonderful opportunity to share the products Carmen and I have been working on for weeks.
Hair bands and tassels and boxes and baskets as well as bags...

We also introduced our ministries as well.
This is our Blessing Basket ministry, There are four main elements in the blessings found in the Bible, Bread, wine, salt and oil. These are combined with prayers to bless a home with.

And our Prayers of Grace ministry. A team of intercessors prays over a pillowcase for children or adults who have trouble sleeping, have bad dreams or headaches. We then personalize it and send it out. These are some we have ready to ship, but some like to send their own pillowcase to  be prayed and personalized.

We are also preparing a Babies of Grace ministry

With personalized nursery items and burp pads.

Present Grace also embraces the  ministry of banners Portraits of Revelations.

A ministry to churches and conferences of worship banners.

We had a great time visiting with all our friends and look forward to our next craft night in August.
Maybe you can join us!


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UPcycling

Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value.

This is the symbol for upcyling.  Upcyling is the opposite of downcycling and all apart of recycling. Now that is enough of that!

That's my brother, Ron. No, he wasn't upcycled or down cycled,  he's just retired now, living the life of leisure in sunny Florida. But our upcycle story begins with him. He use to sell upolstery products to furniture stores. When he retired, he gave me hundreds of fabric samples. Now begins our upcycle projects! Most of the fabric samples were from the late 80's,  you remember back when those jeweled colors were popular, forest green and burgundy! So I suppose you could call upcyling  a bit  retro as well.

The samples were all about 18" x 24" with large grommets at the top, We removed most of the grommets ( now what to do with those babies????) and added coordinating fabrics and ribbons.

We Cut and  ....

       Then we sew. And then  on some we even add embroidery. Something Maxine, the sewing machine, could do very nicely. see!  Poor Maxine, however, met her demise right in the middle of this upcycling project.  Which was a very sad day. 

We still had "Plain Jane" a very nice Janome machine. But alas she was no Maxine, and she could not do much more than sew a nice stitch or two.

To finish off the bags, we designed a little label to put in the

back of the bag. It says " Made with Love, especially for you by Present Grace",

And Voila here is the finished product! This made a special gift for  one of Gabriel's sweet teachers at the library, named Anne.

 

And this one was for his other teacher, Annie!

Here it is all wrapped  up for  her.

It was a very sad day when Maxine expired, but I am happy to report that there is a new Machine, named Irene! And here she is!

With the new machine we will once again be  embroidering , making more bags and more pillows,  spending many happy hours sewing.

S

Present Grace   is  having its first Craft party on June 18th. If you live in the  houston area, come join us for fun and fellowship.

Present Grace is a product of Carmen Viljoen

 seen here with Anya and Gabriel and Patti,  that's me.

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