The King Who Came for You.

It’s Christmas Eve and we’ve put up our trees, wrapped our packages and stilled ourselves in front of the nativity scenes that grace our homes. These nativity scenes seem to cradle the very essence of what Christmas is really all about ... the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior. And as our spirits settle down and sink into the presence of God that fills our homes, our hearts seem to swell, as if we could somehow hold the love that has been showered on us, in the story of Christmas.

Christmas is really a love story.  A real, love story of a King, the King of Kings, setting aside His throne, His grandeur, His royal garments, and then, clothing himself in ordinary flesh and blood. The Bible says He came down to us and “moved into the neighborhood.”

He came down to us. 

He became Emmanuel, God WITH us.  

He could have stayed in Heaven, but He loved us enough to lay everything aside and become like us… become a baby. Then live a life on this earth, listening to His Father, as He taught us, healed us, encouraged us, and eventually saved us for eternity by His death on a cross.*

Oh, how He loves us. And Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, because we remember just how very much we are loved. Every single one of us … just as we are.

At Christmas ... a King came down to earth for you. 

Blessings to you on Christmas Eve,

The Velvet Lime Girls

* Philippians 2:6-8

Christmas Eyes

It's almost Christmas time and I'm thinking about what the celebration to come is really all about. The birth DAY of Jesus, the Savior.            The-coming-to-earth-day of Emmanuel, a name that actually means, "God-with-us". A day we pause to remember that God came down to us and "moved into the neighborhood". John 1:14

And it occurred to me, that I don't have a gift for Him, for Jesus, the One who we'll be celebrating. I have other gifts under the Christmas tree for loved ones, but not one for Jesus.

So, I whisper to Him in a prayer moment, "Oh, I want to give you something! I am so grateful, so thankful, so surrounded by love from You...and I just want to do something, give something...just for you. What can I give you?"

The answer comes through a granddaughter. These eyes of Lilly, just 4 years old, looking up in my face with a heart full of love, and an expression that seems to say, 

"Oh, LaLa, what can I give you? I just love you so much!"

There's really nothing a granddaughter can give or do to show me how much she loves me.  I already know. 

It's felt in the way she justs wants to be with me, the way she runs with arms open wide to me, the way she holds on tight when she hugs, and looks deep into my eyes with her tiny blue ones.  Her gift is just her. Just her being with me. There's not a thing, a gift, a "doing" that needs to be done, to show me her love.  I feel it.

My heart seems to hear God say He feels the same way I do.

There's really nothing I can give or do to show how much I love Him.  He already knows. It's felt in the way I just want to be with Him, the way I run to him with arms open wide, the way I hold on to him tight, the way I look deep into his eyes with my tiny blue ones. My gift is just me.  My being with him.  There's not a thing, a gift, a "doing" that needs to be done to show him my love.  He feels it.

He just wants to be with me...to hold me...to love me. 

And I sense His heart swell with joy, as I move with child-like faith into His embrace, bringing Him the gift of just me.

Spending time with Him,

A Velvet Lime Girl

Petite Nativity

We slipped into a quaint little gift shop in historic downtown Duluth, Georgia recently and had the real spirit of Christmas wrap itself around us. This petite little painting by Karen Markum ushered in the tender moment, holding our eyes captive to the gentle reminder of the real meaning of Christmas.

We hope the tender simplicity of this artwork touches your heart as it did ours.

“The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood”  John 1:14

Christmas Blessings,
The Velvet Lime Girls

P.S. Karen's artwork can be found at The Farmhouse @ https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Farmhouse/355964181176795?sk=infoAdditional artwork can be viewed @ https://www.facebook.com/KarenMarcumArt 

Storyteller

What a treasure this day was!  Here are a few glimpses of the day that Laura spent learning to, in the words of the teacher,  "capture the beautiful details of our life and become the curator of our own story."

The studio brims with creativity and I have to resist the urge to snap photos of everything that surrounds me!  I nestle into the corner of a long u-shaped art table wrapped with five, fresh-as-the-morning-faced-young women...and sink into the creativity that surrounds me.

We'll be creating ten pages that will become the canvases to capture the beauty, the art, of our lives.

 The journey unfolds, not at the beginning of the first blank-stare-you-in-the-face-white page of each journal, but in the safe, comfortable middle.  Oh, I'm going to like this approach...

Phrases worth framing pour out of the teacher the moment she begins to speak.  We're encouraged to "sink into our own story" and "engage with the pages"

and there seems to be a soft exhale when she says ...

"pages slow you down to the speed of listening".

We learn to "wrap language around our pages"

create envelopes to collect things and shelter things

and play with background pages on which we'll curate sprinklings of our story

We are challenged to ask ourselves a question in our journals

And then we answer it...right on the same page.

We pause for a lovely lunch, gather around a rustic, elegant table, flanked with an antique church pew, easy conversation and beautiful box lunches from 3 Blind Mice. Yum! http://www.tbmrestaurant.com

After lunch, we paint backgrounds, landing places, spilling spots in our journals for thoughts, dreams, lists, calendars, emotions and heart whispers.  You can almost hear the sounds of life stories being nurtured, tended to, noticed..."curated".

Our teacher unwraps a treasured photo and with grace-filled transparency shares the significance of this blue, venetian-blind filled photo from her grandparents home. It holds the sweet memories of summer, a screen door she can still hear snapping shut in the background and a favorite pecan tree, now gone, but living forever in her heart and on this little slip of paper.

Her transparency in sharing this story compels us all to think of creative ways to capture our own stories.

Real storytellers do that ... they inspire others.

 Betsy Cañas Garmon,  our teacher, in center, with two of the fresh faced young women who participated. @ http://www.wildthymecreative.com

I end the day thinking that these journal pages we've created are like rooms filled with rare and precious treasures. The lives they represent are like houses. And the passage from Proverbs 24:3 rises up from my heart.

"By wisdom a house (a life?) is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms (its "pages"?) are filled with rare and beautiful treasures."

Grateful for a day to fill my rooms, my pages, with treasures,

A Velvet Lime Girl  

Classes and workshops are ongoing for those of you who are interested @ http://www.wildthymecreative.com

A little PEACE for you today!

We're dancing around our studio today at the arrival of our PEACE CROSS garden flags that we designed for Carson Gifts.  It's been an absolute joy to work with this company and in addition to this garden flag, they've selected some of our artwork for other products that will roll out in 2014.  Carson Gifts selected a soft, silky fabric for this garden flag and we are just thrilled with the quality of the finished product. It kind of floats in the air like a cloud with the slightest breeze ... very different than most stiff garden flags. Since we simply create artwork for manufacturers and companies and don't sell things on our site, we'll leave the Amazon link below, for those of you who might like to have one for your garden or a friend's garden.
Thoughts of peace flow from every garden, to those who pause to listen, and this little flag reminds us to slow down and rest in the peace God sends us everyday.  
With peace and love,
The Velvet Lime Girls
http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Flag-Peace-Cross-Inches/dp/B00FI6LTGK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382717443&sr=8-1&keywords=peace+cross+garden+flag

Transformations

 You have so much hidden inside of you. So much strength, courage, ability, gifts, love, joy and beauty to spill out in this big world.  It's easy to get focused on just what we see on the outside, or what we are feeling, experiencing or living in at the moment. Those hard, crusty times that try their best to hold us back, reign us in, and freeze us into thinking that this is how life will be forever.

This little flower sure could have felt that way all summer long. When every flower in the garden was blooming away, it stood stiff and green, encapsulated in a fuzzy, firm shell. 

Unnoticed. Hidden. Obscure. 

Stuck forever in the plain and ordinary doldrums. 

But inside, a transformation was going on, and at the right moment, that hard, compressed shell just split open and a beautiful new creation burst out. 

ALL THIS was inside that tiny bud the whole time!

This new creation doesn't even look like it came from the same plant!  It has a new nature, a new look, a new "countenance" about it...and life will never be the same for this little flower! Gone are those doldrum days when it's beauty, grace and potential were hidden. 

This flower reminds us of the "new life", the total transformation, the absolute turn-around that can happen in our lives when we connect with God. We can be completely changed.  We can become "a new species of being that never existed before". We can let the very nature of God indwell us. And that really changes everything. It's only a matter of time before things begin to even look different around you, because you'll be viewing life with a renewed outlook, a renewed vision and a transformed set of eyes.

We like the way The Message says it:

"Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!

 2 Corinthians 5:16-17

Celebrating transformations in the garden and in lives,

The Velvet Lime Girls

The Jewels of Autumn

The "Jewels of Autumn" are here. Pomegranates!

Those round, plump, crown-topped orbs, that hold  glistening, shimmering, translucent, rose-tinged, succulent seeds called arils.
                 

A pomegranate tree grows near our studio and we were delighted to pick some recently.

Oh, what a thrill it is to open up a fresh picked pomegranate. It's like opening a package with a million little gifts inside.

Those little gifts, the translucent arils hiding inside, are nestled in creamy compartments and seem to explode in celebration when the outer skin is peeled back.

Like rose-colored confetti tumbling out of a piñata, they pop, back-flip and jump out, with saucy exclamations of "surprise!"  It's like they've been having a party inside there all along, and we've just been invited to join in.

What a delight their sweet, slightly tart, pops of flavor bring!  You just need to go try one, fresh from the market or a tree.  Even if it's not your cup of tea, it's a treat for the eyes with its color combinations, varied textures and "crown top" calyx.

These pomegranates have had us musing about all their lovely mentions in literature, poetry and quotes.For centuries, they've graced historic columns, symbolized favored blessings and whispered softly in romantic tales and legends.  Our favorite mention from history, however, is the simple one found below.  It's a promise, much like the pomegranate itself, filled with numerous assurances of good things to come. 

"... walk down the roads God shows you and reverently respect Him. God is about to bring you into a good land...it’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey.  

Deuteronomy 8:6-8

So, if your world is a little dry, your surroundings a little barren, your spirit a little thirsty...let our pomegranates encourage you today.  They grow and thrive in dry, barren, thirsty climates...always carrying the "promises" inside their hearts.

Enjoying our juicy pomegranates today...one little aril, one little promise, at a time,

The Velvet Lime Girls

P.S. A special thanks to Maria & Andreas Ladikos...
 for sharing their pomegranates.

Restoration

Need a little restoration today? A little renewing, recharging, recreating, refreshing, repairing, or reviving? We have something to give you then... it's kind of like a soothing balm for your soul. It's a collection of healing words straight from the promises of God in scripture, the whispered prayers in our hearts and random thoughts on restoration.  This is for you today, just soft, encouraging words spoken straight to your heart:

We'd like to give this to you. Please click here for your free printable:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4R8A0B0RLCjLW1IbFIzZU5GTW8/edit?usp=sharing

We hope this brings a little comfort to you today... a little refreshing, renewing and restoring.


There is something so transforming in seeing and saying these healing words and letting them soothe away the cares, challenges and weights we've picked up along the way. We hope it becomes part of your restoration today.


Refreshed and Renewed,

The Velvet Lime Girls




Summer's Goodbye

Summer officially said goodbye a couple of days ago, but like the birds trailing behind this shrimp boat in a never-ending party, we're still living like its summer here in Georgia. 

We haven't even put away our white pants.

We're still slipping around in flip flops and shorts, swimming laps in the sun, snapping photos in the garden and creating artwork in our sun drenched studio. 

Summer girls at heart, we're relishing every bright morsel nature tosses our way... sunny days, blue skies and those porcelain, white puffy clouds. But, we know a change is coming. Fall is here. A new season is being ushered in.

Instead of holding on to this summer season we love with a salty-old-knotted-rope-grip, we're embracing change and setting our eyes on the horizon ...on the good things to come. 

The gentle rippling in of autumn always refreshes us with a new expectation and a promise from Proverbs.

The path ahead can be "brighter and brighter".

"The path of the just is like the morning sun, shining brighter and brighter until the full light of day."  Proverbs 4:18

Hearts swaying with anticipation in the breeze of change, 

The Velvet Lime Girls

Photos captured on the banks of Shallowbag Bay in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.