pillows for the Tree of Life Children's Village

I did these cute pillows with chitenge and they now live in the Freedom home with 14 little orphans who now have a safe home to live in!  Praise the Lord!

a baby gift...

Abigail means Rejoices so I thought this was a great verse to bless her with!

everything's cuter with a little Chitenge fabric

What is chitenge?

In American culture we cover the top parts of our body but show our legs and thighs in short skirts. In the Zambian culture breastfeeding openly is not an issue but if you are female you must keep everything covered from your midriff down to below your thighs. In Zambia this area of the body is seen as the erotic area and shouldn’t be shown, not even in trousers.

In order to preserve their modesty then, Zambian women, in rural areas especially, wear something called a chitenge. A chitenge is a piece of cloth, 2 yards or meters in length that women wrap around their body. The width of the cloth is long enough to cover you more or less from your waist to your ankles.

Go to a village in Zambia or the comounds in the city of Lusaka and it would be very unusual to find a woman not wearing a chitenge. It is a practical item too, it covers your clothes which can become dirty quite quickly in the dust and charcoal stoves, it can be used to cover your hair so you don’t smell of smoke from cooking and it can be coiled onto the crown of the head as padding when you fetch water and they are essential for carrying your baby.

The patterns and colours are immensely varied and I have seen chitenges with pictures of politicians on them, light bulbs, even mobile phones.  There are some incredibly beautiful patterns and colors and I am obsessed with them.  These days, I think all things are better with a little chitenge on it.  So I in my life of no Hobby Lobby or Michaels or really any access to art supplies I have been using chitenge for everything.  I use it for wrapping gifts, decorating the girls rooms, pillows and art!  I have found it a good substitute for the cute scrapbooking papers I used to use in the states for some of my artwork!

This is a piece that I did for a girl whe was here in Zambia for Camp LIFE.  I think it turned out really cute!  Let me knoe if you want one!

A kitchen I painted hours before we moved to Africa...

oil paintings

"I pray that you being rooted and established
in love may have power to grasp 

how wide and long and high deep is the love of Christ."

This is a lilly that I enlarged by at least 100% 

until the background was more abstract.  

I wanted the lilly to be true to form and the 

background to have a more whimsical effect.  

 

Fall Wreath Makeover

Here is a picture of my "fall wreath" which I have been using for many years now.

It is starting to get REALLY BORING and I wanted a new one.  

Howver the ones I liked did not fit our missionary budget... 

So, I went to HL and picked up this great sign that reads, "With Grace Surround Us," and a gorgeous green acorn ornament and wired them to the wreath.  I used some double-face satin ribbon I already had and it freshened it up beautifully!   

and here is my sweet girl who wanted in on the camera time!

I Peter 3:4: one of our prayers for the girls!

This is a big painting I did for the girls room.  I was really happy with how it turned out and I pray that when we they look at it they know God is good and they are loved dearly!

Oaks of Righteousness

A painting i did for some friends of ours boys room.  I traced their hands for the painting.

In Christ Alone...

SOLD!! for a sweet baby who is also an emmy but emersyn!

some art pieces...

Tree of life!

SOLD!!

"I pray that you being rooted and established in love will have power to grasp how high and wide and long and deep is the love of Christ."

"Peace be with peace you.  My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid."

SOLD!!

"whatever..."

tree art

This is a picture that I have been wanting to do for a long time for the girl's room and i love how it turned out! It is made with 5 separate canvases, 1 8X10, 2 11X14, 1 14X18, and one 12X12 canvas.

kennedy jewel cox

my sweet friend welcomed her long-awaited little girl to the world on Saturday, August 29. This is hanging in her nursery! Kennedy means strength and jewel means joy. I googled those two meanings in my esv and found this verse. so fun!

door banners

These are some door banners that I have been doing for our moms. They have all of the kids handprints on them! So fun. I will be posting some more soon that don't have handprints but could be for anyone!

I did this for Clay's cousin who is a freshman at aTm this semester!

j is for jessica!

jess, hope you have a great year!

I can't paint without all of the kids wanting to dive right in and I can hardly keep everything from having acrylic paint on it. Their little hands, all 6 of them... (emmy hasn't figured out how to get in the middle of it all yet....) move so darn fast! Ellie and I did this painting together. I took the painting she did and used it to cut the letters for Jake's name out of. I thought it turned out pretty darn cute!

Here is a sweet picture of Jake with Ellie! He is such a cute baby and I cant wait to see him again!

kelsey goes to ACU

our sweet babysitter left for ACU this summer! The kids are already missing her and so am I!

I painted this for her dorm room!

Judy's painting

This is a painting for one of my dear friends!  I used her bedding as the inspiration!  I had lots of fun doing it.  Ellie was home with me and she loved getting to paint all day!  It was a little messy and my rug might not ever be the same...

christmas paintings

I did a bunch of these for christmas gifts.  

They turned out really cute and made great teacher's gifts!

This is a silly little painting that I think is cute.  I wasn't brave enough to give it to anyone but my mom though!

teacher's gifts

This was for bennett's lead teacher last year for preschool.  She teaches full time now in fourth grade and has it hanging in her classroom!

This was for parker's kindergarten teacher last year.  

This was a teacher's gift for bennett's teacher last year!  

Nursery paintings

Here are a couple of paintings that I have done for friends' nurseries.  They are so much fun for me to paint!  All of these match the decor for each baby's room.

This was for a dear friend's nursery.  It is sometimes scary to give something so personal to someone.  You don't want for them to be disappointed in it and you don't want for them to feel like they have to hang it just because you painted it for them.  Well, she cried.... and they were tears of joy!  So much fun!!

This was for a sweet little girl's nursery!

This was for a friend's little girl that was born one day before Emerson.  Her room was in black and ivory and red.  It was hard painting something soft enough for a nursery in those colors and then I had the idea to put fabric on the canvas first and then paint on top of it.  I thought it turned out cute.