If I can do it anybody can

I'm a Christian and as we've established this means a few things, Jesus is God, the Bible is His word, and the Godhead is lord and creator of all things. Being a crafter it's easy to admire a creator. It does not mean I will hit you with my Bible on your way out.
Another awesome thing about being a Christian is that I get to celebrate Christmas with unbridled joy. This doesn't mean I spend millions on the people in my life (I wish I had millions to spend on them but let's face it I would just buy craft instead) it means I celebrate the birth of my saviour and jump with both feet into caroling, tinsel and yule log.
On the other hand a few pet hates of mine include Bah Humbugs, argumentative relatives and most of all the term 'Xmas'. First of all it doesn't work phonetically - you'd be forced to say crossmas or exmas and what has that got to do with anything. Secondly if you need to remove Christ from the Christmas forget celebrating it. Thirdly Xmas features in no Christmas carols. Fourthly X just means no, bad or wrong to me as a symbol so why celebrate that?
For all those people out there that use Xmas as a shorter version of Christmas I have a message - don't! The attached picture is a wool wrapped word which I will be selling this year to all Xmas to Christmas converts at a reduced price but prooves if you can wrap and bend wire to make 'Christmas', a pen should be able to draw holly and tinsel and snowflakes and candy canes and rudolph with no bother at all and the full word not a shorter apology for it.
Take that Bah Humbugs!

Creativity knows no limits

When I started this blog I wanted it to be about my crafting life, I didn't want to turn it into a diary. As it turns out, crafting is such a big part of my life that it may as well be a diary! 

Recently I went to Calcutta in India. I went with four other amazing people all wanting to serve God in a school that our church sponsors. This school provides education to the children of slums and poverty in hopes that speaking English and being able to achieve their certificates will give them a chance at employment. Our job for the week was to teach using games and creativity (my favourite word) both the children and the teachers and to revamp the school.

 I don't have 'before' pictures on my phone but here are some of our efforts to turn a small dingy classroom into something a little more special.

In the older group we made personal flags, when I spoke to the tutors about displaying the children's work they didn't really seem to know what I meant. Here is hoping they get the idea.

This was to inspire the children to dream but to encourage them to work hard.

This room is for the youngest of the students and was the biggest room to try to turn into something good.

There were five of us working on these rooms, the base colour is gloss paint and I can assure you that the smell of gloss will live with me forever, there was some definite hysteria produced from close proximity with the fumes!

We didn't have long and only had the resources we had taken but I'm hoping that the children see and feel a massive difference. 

The time we spent there will perpetually teach me a lot of life lessons, of that I am sure, and more than one thing will stick with me for a long time but for now it's the image of a ageing lady who couldn't speak English that was with us at every moment. If we painted, so did she, if we were covered in dirt, she tenderly cleaned our hands and faces, if we were tired, she fetched drinks and fans. Without a word of communication, without knowing us, this lady cared for us in an incomprehensible way. To her and so many others I will be forever thankful.

I guess my crafting went with me to India, and I guess my time in India will go with me everywhere else.