give-away + homemade/etsy items + and charities = a beautiful thing

My blogger pal/pen pal Elizabeth and her friend Becky are doing something awesome, awesome enough that I HAVE to share!!! They are working with A Beautiful Idea to help sell beautiful homemade items where the profits go straight to charities! To add to even that amazing idea, Elizabeth and Becky are also offering a give-away.... here's how to participate:

Elizabeth is offering Becky's first 5 readers one of Elizabeth's paper crafts (your choice) with any purchase from the donation shop. Once you've made your purchase, email Elizabeth at: evphotogal@me.com let her know your pick along with your address.
That simple.

And you can go to Elizabeth's blog to find out more info!


I love this concept and it really makes me happy to see so many people doing things out of love for each other.

It also touched me in another way.

This past Sunday my youth kids (all high schoolers) were talking about “What If’s”, an interesting idea put forth by Donald Miller (one of my favorite authors). In his blog and during a talk of his that I attended, he discussed the whole purpose of what-ifing. He believes that many of us have stopped dreaming. As we grow up it does seem that we get bogged down with the realities of the world and stop dreaming about crazy things. We start to believe that things are impossible and we stop our minds from wandering. He suggested doing what he does and on a piece of paper writing "what if" on the top, then picking a subject and go crazy dreaming up ideas with it. What if you had an unlimited amount of money and could do anything you wanted? What if you could have any job you wanted? If we allow our minds to dream, to figure out what we want and what's stopping us from achieving that, maybe we can find a way to actually accomplishing it!!!!

So my youth kids and I tried some this past Sunday.
We chose “What if we let go and let God?” Meaning, what if we gave up control and gave it God. Everyone presented their ideas differently, one drew their answers, one wrote out their answers in story form and one wrote theirs out in list form (like me!) Hearing their answers was interesting, since we all have such similar; yet, such different views. Of course there were some negative things on our lists (mine for example dealt with not having control, when I love having control of my own life). However one answer made me truly sad. One student talked about how she felt giving everything up to God and living for Him and Him alone would cause her to lose her creativity. She feels that 'letting God" implies that all of her artwork would be limited to being pictures of Jesus. I too thought something similiar a long time ago, so in a way I understood, but it still broke my heart.

A member of the band The Fray once said “If you’re a painter, paint well. You don’t have to paint Jesus in every picture, but paint well enough and people will ask you why you do it.” I full heartedly agree with the statement. I believe that God has blessed us all with gifts and if one of them happens to be art, I think we should make art. It doesn’t always have to be about Jesus, but if you use your talent, people will ask you why you do it and that’s when you can explain, that you do it because God gave you this amazing gift and you are honoring Him by using it.

The creator of this Beautiful Idea project seems to also believe this and that is one reason why I am so in love with her idea. After checking it out, I think you will be too! :)


much love,
kellie