Blog Hop Winner!!

First off, thank you so much to everyone who took the time out to visit and hear my story of God is working in my life. I am so thankful for each and everyone of you!

Using my trusty little Random.org widget, I selected a winner......ASHLEY HORTON!!!!

 Ashley Horton said...Thanks for sharing your story Amanda!! It is always amazing to see how God works! July 30, 2011 9:58 AM

Congratulations! Praise God from whom all blessings flow....even scrappy ones! :)

Ashley, I will get your package sent on its way soon!!

Again thanks to everyone!! Have a blessed week!!

~Amanda

God's Promises Faith Blog Hop!!

Welcome to the God's Promises Faith Blog Hop. If you arrived here from Candy's blog you are in the right place. If you just arrived at my blog, you should go to Paper Tree House Studio (www.mypapertreehouse.blogspot.com) in order to start at the beginning. Every month a group of brave women get together to showcase the Glory of God. This month we want to showcase His faithfulness during trying times, so kick back, relax and let the Lord touch your heart with His Truth!

Did you know that there are 1260 promises in the Bible? I did not count them myself, but am blown away by the fact that each and every promise the Lord gives, He is faithful to fulfill. It is pretty easy to believe this when times are easy and abundance surrounds our lives, but is that the same when trouble hits?

The Bible says that our hearts are deceitful above all things and then it adds WHO CAN TRUST IT? Have you ever considered that maybe the reason why we don't trust God is because we spend more time looking at how big the waves in our lives have become and forget that God created the entire UNIVERSE with just His breath... Think about it, the Lord spoke the ENTIRE World into existence... the only thing created that was made with His hands was man and woman. That is why He says that if He provides for the birds and the plants, how much more to His children? You are precious to the Lord and He will not fail you, even when it feels He might.

In this hop you will read the stories of women like you that have faced trouble and probably even lacked the faith to believe in the miracle the Lord performed at the very end! Our prayer is that you would open your heart to the Truth found in these promises and that you would even share with us what God has done in your life. Your victory may become our hope... :)

During the hop you will find many chances to win prizes! All you have to do to be considered for one of those prizes is leave a comment and become a follower of the blogs you will hop through. For the Grand Prizes , make sure to leave a comment, become a follower, and "LIKE" Paper Tree House on Facebook. This will allow you to find out about future hops we will be having.

Here are the brave women that dared to share their stories:

Paper Tree House - http://mypapertreehouse.blogsp​ot.com

Nana - www.youniquereflections.blogsp​ot.com

Tammy - http://www.fromme2upapercrafti​ng.blogspot.com/

Susan - http://susanascorner.blogs​pot.com/

Jennifer E. - www.createoften.blogspot.com

Candy - http://www.sweetstamper.co​m/

Amanda - http://asjmade.blogspot.com/

Wendy - http://wendyscrappings.blogspo​t.com/

Nicole - http://scrapmethis.blogspot.co​m

Jessie - www.scrapbookingmiami.blogspot​.com

Diane - http://dianemarra.typepad.com/

Vicki - http://mawmawsthoughts.blogspo​t.com/

Lynne Kirsch --- http://slasewcraftiness.blogsp​ot.com/

Carolyn Phillips - http://messmuddleandfun.blogsp​ot.com/

ScrappyZeni Pradel --- www.scrappyzeni.blogspot.com

Grand Prizes:

Stamping Things: The Topper Ink Pad Holder (http://www.stampinthings.com/​stamp-pad-holder.html)

Paper Tree House Studio: Exclusive PDF file tutorial for Mini-Book Taught at CHA.

K Andrew Stamps: Stamp Set

Tombow: Grand Adhesive Set

God's Fulfilled Promise in my life:
  
I really struggled with what story to share here. I feel that God has fulfilled so many promises in my life, many that I am sure I am not ever aware have been fulfilled. Finally I decided to focus on the promise of Forgiveness and the promise of New Life. For me, the go hand in hand.
  
 I spent my whole life not really feeling like I had a purpose, not really having any type of relationship with God, I went to church on the holidays, I went to religion class when my mom made me, and I only prayed when I wanted something....the saddest thing about all of that is that I had no idea that I was living my life wrong, simply because I was just living it for me.
  
 I got mixed up in some behavior that was sending me on the path of destruction...yet still I didn't turn to God. Thankfully he knew what I needed, and I met my husband. I no longer felt the need to look for love, I had it right there in front of me! Yet still, I didn't thank God, and I still had no closer relationship with him.
  
A few years later, we found out that we were going to experience our own little miracle. We were going to have a baby!! :) Things started to feel different, I wanted to go to church, I wanted to learn more about the Bible and about my Lord and Savior, I wanted to grow in my faith. We started going to church, a church where we were not welcomed, so it very quickly soured our little family on our walk of faith and learning, so we stopped going.
  
 Then one day we were talking with some friends, and they asked us to go to their church with them. We did, walked in the doors that first day, and we knew we were right where we were supposed to be! The next month they started membership classes, so we signed up! On the day of our first class, we found out we were expecting another little miracle! :) I instantly took that as confirmation for God that this was our spot, where we were supposed to be.

I am blessed daily by God, and he has given so much more than I deserve. When I wasn't yet ready to take the steps to give it to Him, when I was scared to give that trust and faith a chance, He began working in my life to make me see it and find it in people around me. He knew that all the sadness and bad choices didn't help bring me to Him, so he gave me love and happiness. He gave me a wonderful, wonderful husband who I love so much more than I can even express, two beautiful little girls, who teach me daily about the wonder and glory of His love and forgiveness. I sought Him during the happiest times in my life, and Praise the Lord I found Him!

As I struggled with what to share for this, which as I read back now, I see that it is more of my faith journey that I shared, but what better promise do we have? Than that of new life, of seeking and finding....But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.Deuteronomy 4:29
Here are some other scriptures that helped inspire me through this post.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all. 1 John 1:7

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Psalm 32:8

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17

Here is a layout I created for this blog hop...I look at this picture and I feel everything I talked about forgiveness, new life, new chances, love...and so much more. God is so good!

Thank you so much for visiting my blog, and allowing me to share part of my story with you. I pray that God is working in your life! I would like to offer a little RAK for you! To be entered, please just become a follower and leave a comment (if you are already a follower, please just leave me a comment telling me you are) and I will randomly select someone to win a a fun prize pack I have put together :)

Thanks for hopping through this faith hop. Know that we are praying for you and really hope your eyes are opened to the Truth about the Lord's Faithfulness! :)

Now you are off to Wendy's blog, to hear about God's promises of fulfillment in her life.

Love in Christ,

Amanda

Kerri Bradford Giveaway!!

Hey all!! :) Hope everyone is having a fantastic week so far! :) I just wanted to hop on and share that Kerri Bradford Studio is offering an AMAZING giveaway on facebook!! She is offering a $50 credit to her store to 3, YES 3!!, people!! She has some amazing things on her online store that I have been dying to get and try out on my Silhouette!! So head on over and "like" her facebook page, and make sure and tell her I sent ya!! :)

Childhood Memories

I have very few memories from when I was little of being outdoors, just having fun and being a kid. We lived in town, and right on the highway, so outside play didn't get to happen too often, and when it did it was in a very small area.

So, I love the my girls have tons of space to run around, play, explore, and hide. This picture is one of many from a very fun filled day with the kiddos. Hide and seek, very much a favorite around here, was the game of the day...and it made for some very happy girls who didn't mind letting Mommy snap a few pictures! :)

This was one of my favorite photos of Miss E from that day...I thought about adding more photos, but decided they weren't necessary...you can see it all in that smile! :)



Boy do I love that little lady! :)

I used sketch 7.14 from Sketchy Thursday on this one.

Another great sketch from the ladies again this week, and still time to play along!! :)

Hope everyone has a blessed week!! :)

~ Amanda

Sweet Secrets

Happy Friday all!! :) I thought I would get on here and share a layout! :)

I used a sketch from Creating Keepsakes for this one, and I love the way it turned out!! There is a design team challenge over at Pumpkin Spice, which is an AMAZING online store I recently discovered! Seriously their products are all the go-to's at much, much better prices!! Their motto is" Memories are Priceless, budgets are not!" How true and perfect!! Anyway, back to the challenge, it was to use 2 or more of the paper line options they gave us. Here is my layout:

I absolutely love these photos of the girlies! These were taken by a dear friend of mine, we were trying so hard to get some "poses" and the girls wanted nothing to do with it, they were just playing and having fun...and those are the best photos from that day! In fact, I love these so much, that there is another layout in the works so that they can both have one in their album! :)

On this layout I used a pretty good mixture of some of my favorites (which thankfully were also some of our options for the challenge!) There is lots of Crate Paper and my favorite stamps Stella &Rose doilies by MME! Love those! For the challenge we were supposed to list our favorite manufacturers, and those of you that see my layouts know I LOVE Crate Paper, MME, and American Crafts. I would have to say those are my 3 go-to's for most things, though I am trying to branch out a little and try some new stuff! What are your favorite manufacturers, your go-to product??

I am also linking this up to Paper Issues for the "Sweet" challenge. I can't think of anything sweeter than the secrets these two are sharing! :)

We are getting closer to 50 followers friends! Don't forget when I hit that there will be a giveaway!!!

Also a reminder for the 2 Blog Hops coming up!! One the last weekend of July and the other in August! I will post more details again next week!

Thanks for stopping on by today! I hope you all have a very blessed weekend!

~Hugs~

Amanda

Cruisin'

Oh, the sweet fall days, cruisin around with the t-tops out of the old Camaro, just enjoying the beautiful life. That's what I think of when I see these pics of the little one, riding around in her Papaw's old car.
She had so much fun that day (both of them did actually, so expect another layout with Miss E)! Just enjoying life...why can't days always be that sweet and simple??

I am really love Country Drive by Echo Park! I have used it on two totally different layouts now, but I think it worked perfect for both of them!!!

I used the 7.7 sketch from Sketchy Thursdays on this one, with a little tweaking to make it my own! :)

I am also linking this layout to Paper Issues since their theme this week is "Life is Sweet" :)

Hope you all have a blessed week...its super miserably hot here this week, so hoping to find inside activities to keep the girlies happy, and maybe some extra scrappy time for me too!!

Hope you all have time to create something you love! :)

All Star!!

My oldest played T-ball this year for the first time.  She was so excited when it started, especially when she found out her uniforms were pink. LOL! She had alot of fun, but I feel she is going to end up being too girly for these type of sports! Example: One of their games, she gets dirty, in the middle of the game, walks over to her coach, and makes him dust off her pants and mitt. Miss Princess!! LOL!

So when I went to scrap these photos, I didn't want to do a "traditional" baseball layout...hence all the pink and girliness! LOL!

Whoops! Look like I took my picture a little crooked! One of these days I WILL get the hang of it! :) Promise!! :)

Hope everyone has a blessed weekend!! We are heading out of town tomorrow to see some friends that we haven't seen in years!! Pretty excited!! :)

Blessings! :)

Ahhh Relaxin'

My youngest is a water baby, through and through! Bath tub, pool, hose, it doesn't matter what, lol, she is all over it. My favorite thing that she does is every time she is in the bath or a pool, she lays back in it and sprawls all out, and just says, "Ahhh...relaxin'"! Its too cute!! LOL!

So I used the WWU #9 from ScrapFit, a sketch from Sassy Lil Sketches ( July 28, 2010) and came up with this layout that I am pretty much in love with!!

Stepped out of the comfort zone a little on this one...and its my first layout using my brand new Silhouette!! I used it to create the background mask!

Here is my little water nymph relaxin in her pool....

I seriously love those Mister Huey mists from Studio Calico...going to need every color of those! LOL!

Hope everyone has a blessed week! I am off to make my hubby an anniversary dinner...8 wonderful years together today! :)

HUGE GIVEAWAY!!!

Over at the Purple Pumpkin!! To celebrate their first birthday they are offering up some amazing prize vouchers! They will be giving away FOUR!! vouchers ranging in amount from $50-$10!!

Head over to the Purple Pumpkin and check out their GORGEOUS products and enter yourself in to win some goodies!!!

Have a blessed day!!

I just wanted to hop on today and share something that I am so blessed to be able to be a part of later this month!!

What can we trust in and have faith in more than the promises that God has for us. His love is unconditional and knows no boundaries! I hope that you will all join in as myself and some other very talented crafters share our stories and use our craft to give the glory where it belongs, to our Father in Heaven!

Have a very blessed holiday weekend! Will see you all next with some new projects!! :)



That Crinkle

My youngest has the completely infectious smile. You see it and you just instantly smile back, I'm not sure what it is about it...but its irresistible. I especially love the way she always crinkles her little nose up...so of course a layout of said crinkle must go in her album.

I combined the One Hour Challenge at Club CK to stitch on your layout with this sketch from Frosted Designs...

This is the layout that I came up with using my yummy new Fine and Dandy by MME!! I couldn't believe how hard it was to find this collection!!!

See what I mean!!! Look at that smile!! Doesn't it just make you happy??

Hope you all have a blessed holiday weekend!!