Flowers for YOU!

It's Friday!  A perfect day for you to receive a big bouquet of flowers!  Flowers just seem to wrap the whole world (or your week) in a warm embrace of love.  We hope our graphic flowers do just that... and also brighten your day, lift your spirit and remind you that you are very loved.  

God actually says that He has loved you with an everlasting love.  What a gift...everlasting love. We like the way the Message conveys this love note from God:

            “I’ve never quit loving you and never will.    

                  Expect love, love, and more love!"

                                    Jeremiah 31:3

Love, love and more love.  Ooooh, an expression like that will stay in your heart forever!  So receive the love today and this little graphic bouquet of flowers from us.  Just for you! 

Happy Friday,

The Velvet Lime Girls 

REVIVE

The walking lilies in our studio garden are sending out shoots from the mother plant and sprouting up new life all over our flowerbeds.  The mother plant, the genesis of all this new life, is absolutely beautiful, so full of vibrant color, energy and life!  When it births one of its many slender shoots, they stretch-out, sink into the soil, and a whole new life is birthed in the garden. A whole new life that reflects the beauty and grace of the genesis plant....the creator.

It's a constant reminder to us of the new life that God gives us, when we give our lives to Him... when we let His Spirit dwell inside of us. It's an energizing, revitalizing, new life that will actually change our physical bodies, because HIS SPIRIT has taken-up residence inside of us.  

We're revived. 
We're refreshed. 
We're renewed.

"And if the same Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives (dwells) in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you."  
Romans 8:11

Living revived, refreshed, renewed,
The Velvet Lime Girls

Poppies!

A poppy burst open this morning in our studio garden. 
It's been said that one can actually hear the sound of a poppy opening...a subtle little "pop!" 
One thing's for sure, they do make a grand entrance!
A poppy opens up with such bright faced joy, and summer surprise in its petals, that we've wondered if it silently plans the explosive, celebratory debut for weeks ahead, inside its fuzzy little head?  

That little head must swirl around with thoughts of celebration, joy and gratitude...and it's probably because the poppy has its mind set on right things, on good things, on the beauty that is to come in its life.

This poppy unfolded a few thoughts in us today. Thoughts about the same joy, the same celebration, that we can hold in our hearts, as we, like the poppy, set-our-minds-on-good things, good thoughts and promises spoken directly to our hearts by God.
 
We know that when we let our thoughts, inspired by God, swirl around in our heads and hearts, we too, like this fresh-faced poppy, will be able to lift our heads and be filled with a joy, a gratitude, that simply overflows and kind of "pops" out into our own worlds.

So today, we'll be looking at the poppy party going on and letting our hearts join in with lovely thoughts like this...
"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of The Lord rises upon you."
Isaiah 60:1

Enjoying the party in the garden and in our hearts,
The Velvet Lime Girls

Iris Inspiration

Dutch irises have been dancing around our studio this week. These purple-hued ballerinas, twirling and stretching, with demi-pliés, pirouettes and artful arabesques, have been gently spilling out of our studio vases. It's enough to cause us to start executing a perfect glissade across our studio drawing tables! 

These petite irises really know who they are, they know the hands, the "fingers" that have made them, and they bear the unmistakable mark of their creator. 

You'll never find one of these creations displaying a poor self image, feeling worthless or giving-in to a bad day. They have the very life of God in them. His hands have made them, shaped them, and they bear the mark of their creator, right down to the very last, tiny detail.

 How could they not celebrate, with the value, the worth, the love that's been given to them?

Their exquisite display of beauty is a mere shadow of the value, the worth, the love that God has showered on each of us.  He tells us we are "wonderfully created" and that His thoughts about us are so vast, that if we counted them, they'd "outnumber the grains of sand".

You really should just jump up right now and do a little pirouette, as you read this love letter excerpt that is written to you.  He's totally smitten with you.  When you're loved like this, (and you really know it, and receive it), ... you can dance everyday, regardless of your surroundings.

So, take a cue from these irises. Lift your head up, stretch your arms out wide and let that "crown of glory and honor" you've been given shine in your world today.

Inspired by the irises,
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.

Garden of Your Heart

Our studio garden is bursting with new life.  Frilled bonnets of ferns are peeking out, pointed party hats of hostas pierce the soil and peonies peel back the earth's canopy, unfurling themselves in a long leisurely stretch, presenting blooms of pink explosions that seem to say, "Ta-da! I'm here!  Oh, they're thrilled to stretch their leaves and live fully again!

Soon they'll be bearing "fruit".  

Glorious, vibrant flowers, filled with  aroma, fragrance and millions of seeds for future generations.  Their "fruit" always reflects the condition of the garden.  

Healthy garden = healthy flowers = healthy fruit.  

It's a simple formula and one that requires a bit of diligence on our part.   We have to keep the weeds out!

Weeds can be sneaky.  They look small and insignificant, but if left unattended they sap the very life of the garden. With weeds around, the fruit from the garden never matures fully, never develops into all that it can be and lives far below it's potential.

In the same manner, the gardens of our heart have to be clear of weeds. Those pesky, small and insignificant things that sap the life out of real living.  Things like anger, bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness.  They stunt our growth and they just have to go! Sure, they can stay, but that garden of your heart, the essence of the real you, will never develop fully and you'll find yourself living far below your potential.  So, pull those "weeds" up! Let them be replaced by grace, forgiveness and a heart filled with gratitude.  It takes a little diligence, faith and the hand of God, reaching down, grabbing those gnarly roots and uprooting them forever... divinely removing their very memory and changing the landscape of your life.

Oh, the growth that can occur in a garden without weeds and a heart garden that's been touched by the hand of the Master gardener...clearing the ground of the heart and saturating it with buckets of love.

It's a total terrain transformation.  One that's followed by fragrance, real fruit and good seeds for future generations.

Healthy Heart = Healthy Life = Healthy Living

Tending the gardens of our hearts,

The Velvet  Lime Girls

Forgiveness

Forgiveness.  It's a word that goes right to the heart of Easter.

When Katie Wydock, Marybeth's youngest daughter, created this artwork for a school assignment, we immediately knew we would share it on Easter morning. We love her simple graphic style that portrayed forgiveness as a beautiful flower, filled with petal descriptions of the benefits to the body, mind and spirit.

It's a lovely reminder of the beautiful forgiveness purchased for us when Jesus Christ died and then rose from the dead on Easter morning.

Katie's artwork displays some of the benefits of forgiveness such as joy and happiness, but the forgiveness God has extended to us is far beyond these benefits.  God enabled us to have a real relationship with Him again.  All the things that separated us from Him, all the mistakes, wrong- doing, rebellion, bad decisions, attitudes and anger were wiped away through the death of Jesus and His resurrection.  God forgave us.  For everything.  And then paid the penalty due for all this with his only Son.  It's an amazing story of love and great forgiveness.

We're reminded of just how far God removed all the wrong things in our life in this passage:
" As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."  
                                                             Psalms 103:12

God gave us the gift of a clean slate, a fresh start and a new beginning with life connected to Him.
And forgiveness paved the way.

Celebrating Easter,
The Velvet Lime Girls
Marybeth, Laura and Rebecca

Impressions

 

Some creatures leave the most beautiful impressions. 

When a little dove flew directly into this sunroom window yesterday, it left behind an imprint on the glassy canvas and a story in our hearts.

We're grateful to Laura's Dad, who captured this feathery photo and sent it to us with the following note: 
"...there was a heavy frost on the ground, and as the sunlight struck the glass, an image of the dove impacting the glass became abundantly  clear. The combination of frost, sunlight and dust on the glass created a breathtaking image that faded away almost as quickly as it appeared."

An impression left behind...

                  a fleeting glimpse...

the lingering essence of something beautiful.

It reminded us of the impressions our lives can leave behind everyday.  We're little carriers of light and even when we face bumps in our road, just like this dove, we can leave behind

 an imprint of beauty, 
                  an imprint of grace,
                           an imprint of hope. 
                               
In fact, we're encouraged to do just that.
"Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message ..." Phillipians 4-16 

The faint impression left by this dove still radiates a fluid, transcendent feeling of flight. Our spirits kind of soar when we stop and gaze at it.  He left a beautiful, uplifting image and a quiet reminder for us to do the same in our world. 

We hope you'll be encouraged to be little light carriers today. Spilling out joy, grace, compassion, hope, love and beauty as you soar through this world.

Leaving impressions,
The Velvet Lime Girls 

detail of dove wing... the sparkle on the end just appeared.
Photos by Clarence P. Skinner

Fresh Starts

A droopy looking shrub hung out in our studio garden all summer long, looking like it was barely getting by.  We tried to perk it up with fresh drinks of water and fertilizer smoothies, but it just stood with its head down and slumped shoulders most of the summer.

Deep inside that dreary exterior, though, there was a great work going on.  The Creator knew what He was doing with this one and although things looked pretty despondent on the outside, inside, a magnificent work was being done.

We’ll never forget the day we caught a glimpse of just how extensive the hidden work had been. It all began with a little tender bud. 

A soft pink envelope, barely containing the strong, vibrant life beneath its veined petals.  This bush was coming alive again! It had been renewed!  It had exchanged its former life with a new life … an abundant life … an exuberant life!  This new life filled it up so much, it just began to explode with joy, and flowers burst out in every direction. Wow, what a sight to behold. Flowers everywhere with their hands lifted up in praise!

All of this was inside that old bush all the time!

It made us think of the transformation, the actual exchange, that can happen in our lives and re-create us into the person God made us to be.

It’s conveyed in The Message beautifully:

We don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look … 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! (grows, rapidly expands, flourishes) Look at it!

So, we hope you will “look at it!” 

Look at this bush that is now alive and flourishing with flowers!  Let it remind you of the fresh start, the new beginning, the absolute-total-recharge of your life that's just waiting for you.

 

Celebrating fresh starts,

The Velvet Lime Girls

P.S. A special thank-you to Travis D. Rhodes, Laura’s father-in-love, who gave the small cutting that became the magnificent star in our garden. Like the Confederate Rose, his life overflows with reflections of God's abundance, extravagant love and transforming power.

Snapdragon Smiles

The snapdragons came back this summer. 

Normally they’re cool weather flowers that say hello in the spring, on long stretches of stalks that explode with popcorn heads of color.

 

We love them not only for their amazing shades, but, as every little child should know, because they “talk”.  It’s true.  Just gently squeeze one of those blossom puppet heads and you’ll soon have a lively conversation going on that is sure to please anyone who is young at heart.  They have such a great personality!

And they are funny.  Just ask a child who has learned how to make them talk and you’re sure to get a giggle.  Even adults smile.  And when you look at them real close, they seem to be laughing. Maybe it’s the popcorn like entrances or maybe they are just laughing at us making them “talk”.

Whatever they are laughing about, we were thrilled when they cheerfully arrived again in July and brought a smile to the garden.

They made us realize how much a cheerful outlook can change things.  It’s a secret source of smiles, just ask any snapdragon.  We think they may have embraced this little truth:

“A cheerful heart brings a smile to your face…”  Proverbs 15:13

 

Smiling...

laughing...

talking to  snapdragons,

Velvet Lime Girls

His Only Son

It’s Easter Sunday today. A highlight in our year. We’ve been busy meeting our design submission deadlines for Easter themed products with images of bunnies, eggs, and flowers dressed in pastel colors. We love these light-hearted themes with their fun traditions and memories of childhood, but we hold in our hearts the real message of Easter.

It’s not a pastel colored message … it’s a vivid, piercing, bold color of love message that wraps itself around anyone who will receive it. A love that is so giving and far-reaching that it cannot be expressed from a color wheel or even from the entire light spectrum in our universe.

It’s a celebration message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. A new life has been made available to us, a way to an eternal relationship with God, because the shed blood of Jesus paid the penalty for sin that separated us from God. The full story can be found in the Bible.

What must it have been like when God chose to give his son … his only son, to a world He loved? This watercolor that hangs in our studio is our constant reminder of God’s great love.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

Celebrating Easter and reminding you that you are so loved by God,

The Velvet Lime Girls

P.S. “His Only Son” – a watercolor study by a young student, James Rhodes, in 1974. When photographed for this blog, the flash accidently reflected off of the “heart.”

SHINE BRIGHT

“The ways of right-living people glow with light; the longer they live, the brighter they shine.” Proverbs 4:18

This proverb was the inspiration behind our sunflower artwork and with the sun shining bright in Atlanta today, it’s a promise that is warming our hearts.

We had originally used a translation of this proverb with the expression of living life in a brighter and brighter manner, because of our right standing, our connection with God, made available all because of His Son, Jesus. Today, when we read the Message translation, we glowed with a new illuminated insight. We felt like little lightning bugs pulsing with the presence of God within us.

Warm little lights glowing brighter and brighter and shining the longer they live. That’s God’s description of how our lives should be. Wow, it’s enough to give you a hot flash even if you’re not a woman.

We hope you feel the warmth in our new, slightly revised sunflower. We’re only able to give you a peek, to protect our original work. For a fuller view visit http://www.paintedplanetlicensing.com/velvet-lime-girls.html

Shine bright today,

The Velvet Lime Girls