Inspired by... praise

Inspired by... praise

 

Remember the exhilaration you used to feel on the last day of school? Your summer stretching out before you, full of fun, endless possibilities and... sleeping in nearly every morning? The freedom of having TIME to do what YOU wanted! Okay, it might be a distant memory, but still...

{sigh}

These days I get excited if I have two hours together when there's not something I should do, have to do or want to do. Many weeks end up like this one where various appointments and commitments converge creating chaos out of what you thought was going to be a normal week. Wait, maybe chaos is  my normal week? Ha, ha, well, you get the idea.

The point is, in the midst of the chaos (normal or not) it's easy to forget to be thankful. To forget to praise Him from whom all blessings flow. But somehow, when I do stop for a moment, and remember to be grateful, the chaos suddenly seems a little less chaotic.

Stopping and remembering to be grateful is something my church does, as a family of believers, every year around this time. We call it the Fall Festival of Praise and it is a time when we come together to worship, praise and thank God for the "harvest" He has produced in each of our lives over the last year. As the scripture verse in my blog header says, we acknowledge that all things come from Him.

This year I had the privilege of making the centerpieces for the tables and I'm so pleased with how they turned out.

 

They were really quite simple and inexpensive to make. I spent under $20 for ten centerpieces, so that is less that $2 a piece!  Whoo-hoo!

 

 

I used modge podge to apply the tissue paper to the clay pots, then added designs I'd cut from some scrapbooking paper I already had on hand.  Each pot is a little different. Unique.

 

 

I stuffed crumbled paper in the bottom of the pots to fill the extra space, then added the Spanish moss and nestled the pumpkins/gourds on top of the moss. I used one bag of moss for all ten pieces and even had some left over.

 

 

My friend M.E. cut the PRAISE letters out for me using her Cricut machine, which saved me a ton of time! I used burlap scraps left over from another project and my hot glue gun to glue the jute to the back of each triangle, then tied the pennants to bamboo skewers.

 

 

Of everything, the pennants took the longest to make and I had to keep reminding myself to glue them together backwards... otherwise all my centerpieces would say:  ESIARP

Which would not be good.

 

 

Aren't they darling? The mini pumpkins are my favorite.

As with (most) everything on this blog, these were a result of combined inspiration! I saw so many pumpkins nestled in vases and pots all over blog land that I couldn't possibly give credit to them all, but Kristol over at The Magic of Ordinary Things was definitely my inspiration for the pennants with her post about the reunion centerpieces she made back in August!

 

What's been inspiring you lately?

 

Blessings,

 

 

 

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