A handmade Christmas

Our goal at Christmas with gift giving has been to give something personal, meaningful and inexpensive. I think we can all agree that presents for a long list of family and friends can quickly add up. Last year, we were in the throws of mucho tight times financially and therefore everybody got a picture of Haley and a jar of apple butter from one of our favorite stops in Tennessee. Ok, not so personal I know, but it was meaningful and inexpensive.

This year I was really inspired by an idea I saw at the Shrimp Festival in October. A vendor had taken pictures of architecture and nature to bring out the shape of a letter in the alphabet. She then took these letters and spelled words with them in art. I have since learned that this was a new craze and there's even been a successful company selling these Alphabet Photography art pieces worldwide. Anyway, I got really excited when I saw these and started thinking of what word I would want for our home...until I realized they were $8 per letter. Toby pulled me aside and said, "You could totally do this yourself." He's so encouraging and that's one of the things I love about him! I quickly came up with lots of excuses, laziness and lack of creativity being chief. But in the end, my frugalness and not wanting to drop $40 on art we really didn't need won out.

The idea didn't die there. During our 90 minute drive home that afternoon, I couldn't get the idea out of my head and I began seeing letters all over the landscape. Slowly some motivation began to grow. Long story short, I spent a few hours out one afternoon while Toby played with Haley and then another afternoon while Haley watched movies in the back seat...I'd drive around town until a found a fun letter, hop out, snap the picture and then run back to the car. Honestly, for my stay at home mom self, it turned into a fun project.

So this idea morphed into Christmas presents! I wanted to offer our family something meaningful. Not just from me and Toby, but from our Jesus Himself. So I spent several weeks in prayer over our family members and God faithfully gave me a word for each person. The original idea was to write a letter to each person to explain the art and the word God had for them, but as busyness often gets in the way, the letters got put off. Eventually, His Spirit became so heavy, the letters got written just in time, and I am SOO grateful for our obedience. I wrote the letters to my family and Toby wrote letters to his. To watch my family read Jesus' words and to see His love come across their face was priceless and afterward I reflected for a long time...Who am I to deny my family Jesus' soothing words that their soul so badly needed to hear? It was a wonderful reminder that I am here to serve Him...to do His work...to spread His love. My laziness nearly cost my family a beautiful blessing.

PEACE

REST

CHERISH

I took all of the pictures myself around Mobile, the boards came from Lowe's and were painted black. The clip frames came from Quadro frames ($1.49/each). Toby attached hangers on the back and I glued the frames to the board with wood glue. Being an accountant by trade, I've always considered myself "lacking" in the creative department, so if I can do this, so can you!

Thank you Jesus for a fun, creative and inexpensive way to share Your love with our family this Christmas. Thank you for loving each of us so much that You know exactly what we need to hear when we need to hear it. You continue to amaze me!