For Justin

For Justin, my friend who is a founding assistant at L'Arche St. Louis: “The first duty of love is to listen.” -Paul Tillich

Read about Justin's awesome insights and experiences here!

Mom and Dad's Gifts

In addition to the gift that I made Danno for Valentine's Day and brought to St. Louis with me, I also made something small for each of my parents to celebrate the holiday. Here they are:

For Mom: "I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world." -Mother Theresa

For Dad: "In every community, there is work to be done.
In every nation, there are wounds to heal.
In every heart, there is power to do it."
-Marianne Williamson

Danno's Gift

Danno's favorite book is "A Walk Across America" by Peter Jenkins, about a guy who literally walks across America. When I went to visit Danno this weekend, I brought this little project along with me:

It is definitely one of the most extensive pieces I've created in a while. I started with a canvas that I painted light yellow. The back line of mountains was cut from a great map of London that I found at a thrift store. The second set is blue fabric that I lightly streaked with gray and black paint. For the third, I cut out bits a pieces of songs that somehow related to nature and pasted them to cardstock, then cut it to achieve the desired shape. The fourth set had a background of grayish-purplish paint. I watered down some black paint and covered the gray paint, then blotted off most of it with a tissue. For the green tree line, I cut a few pieces of white fabric, then painted each with some combination of green colors. Around the border are words or phrases that I cut out from magazines that fit in with the theme. Then I used dark blue paint to create the quote. The whole thing was covered in Mod Podge. Ta da!

I was really really happy with the result. Pretty impressed with myself, actually.

Keep craftin'