Last weekend I got a pretty original piece of watercolor and ink art at a garage sale.  The colors were faded, but the price was right ($2.00) and I wanted to make another beaded floral Mixed Media.

I actually wanted to make colored sand leaves, but that idea did not turn out.  LOL

I like Aleene’s Tacky Glue…it dries clear and is easy to apply.

After I used the bugle beads to make the borders, I filled in the centers with tiny clear beads because I didn’t have any tiny orange beads!  I have jars of glass paint that comes in fabulous colors so I tinted the center beads with orange paint on the tulips and yellow on the iris.

I’m glad the colored sand idea didn’t work because the flowers were easy to cut out and made a totally transformed mixed media piece.   I painted the  10 x 10 canvas a pale blue with some teal shading on the corners.

While I was cutting out the flowers from the faded watercolor paper it dawned on me that this project was a perfect illustration how God redeems us and makes us a new creation!!!!

When we finally get sick of running our own life and come to Jesus to forgive us of our sin and decide to follow Him, He takes us just as we are (like my faded garage sale watercolor).  We start a relationship with Jesus by reading the Bible, going to church, and developing good relationships with other Christians (even ones who blog on the internet!)  YAY!

THEN that relationship with Jesus starts to change us and how we think and act.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV

I could make a long list of the things My Heavenly Father + Jesus + The Holy Spirt have changed in me.  Unfortunately, there seems to be a long list of things that still need to be changed!  But God does the work and I keep my nose in the Bible every day and sit in my favorite chair every morning to look up to God for satisfying conversation.

God is the Creator and He is creative in our life, making us into a new creation, like my little watercolor that is now a totally different lovely piece of mixed media art.

The complete phrase is “Grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ” 2 Peter 3:18  Nowadays the word “grace” seems to be a very popular word amongst Christians.  But I have to say I don’t hear a lot about “growing in knowledge”!  Knowledge comes from reading and studying the WORD.

Recently it dawned on me that I hadn’t really read the Old Testament for 3 years, so I started reading a few weeks ago.  The Old Testament is refreshing my memory about the personality of God (the Father + Jesus + Holy Spirit) and I am finding a new reverence in my heart for Him.  That is growing in knowledge!

I salute all my fellow Christians who follow my blog.  If times are hard for you perhaps the Lord is cutting out the old and making you into something fabulous and  new!