JFlah's Blunders

My birthday is coming up next month and how better to celebrate than to sponsor my very first giveaway? I know I don't have many... er, "any" followers, but it would be fun to start doing this on a more regular basis if the response is good.   I've been making things from free patterns all winter so I have lots of them sitting around - probably more items than I may ever wear. One of them is a beautiful picot cowl from a pattern I found at Cre8tion Crochet (probably through pintrest ) and some great off-white chunky lion brand yarn. I've included three photographs. Would've taken a photo of someone wearing it but no one was around when I had access to a camera. Enter the Giveaway! Entries accepted from March 1-March 31 from residents of the continental United Sates. Winning entry will be chosen at midnight on March 31. Estimated retail value of Picot Cowl: $50 (+shipping)

This is the first one I put out. Had to leave one at work. I hope it brought a smile to the person who took it home. Here's the pile of hearts in my front seat before I left work. Only had about 30, but that's not bad for only a few hours of work. They went together quickly at less than ten minutes each even with the fuzzy embellishments.  So yeah, I had a blast giving out the hearts on Valentine's Day! I know I'm just one person and I didn't have many to give out, but to see the smiles these little things brought to people's faces - well, the time and effort was worth it. I prayed that God would use these little things to glorify Himself - that's why I made sure not to put my personal contact info on any of them, though I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a temptation. I've been attempting to live in a more open-handed (generous) way and God's been helping me with that - He's been opening my eyes to small opportunities t

I'm about to run out into the town and bomb it with cute little crochet hearts that share the love of Christ on this day that a great number of people are miserable. Yep, So much fun! Am super excited. I'll update this post soon with photos of some of the bombs.

My sketch - scanned and digitized in Illustrator before bringing into Photoshop.  When I was making the announcement slides and such for True Love Waits this year I ran across a cute little vector drawing that inspired me to create one of my own that I could adapt for the announcements. ( Check out the inspiration at HD Wallpapers. ) I'm not sure I changed it enough to really say that it's mine now, but I can say that I really enjoyed sketching this little dude. I can say that the final ended up being a bit different from the sketch and I think it's better without thumbs and a shirt. Kind of reminds me of those cute little hugging salt/pepper shakers . Inspiration image This is the letterhead topper This is the announcement slide

Here's a plain one, ready for dropping off. I'm excited about Valentine's Day for the first time in my life. I'm going to do a small scale yarn bomb around town when I'm on my lunch break that day. Cute little crochet hearts here and there for people to find and smile about. Why yarn bomb on valentines (besides all of the people who are often sad on this holiday)? Last weekend a friend mentioned something about a blogger she follows doing something similar and it got my wheels turning. At work/church last year we did a " I Heart My Church " promotion that attempted to build our church's unity. I had hoped that instead of the narcissistic sounding "I love my church" thing we'd do something a bit more community focused this year but in lieu of having a pastor this February, we're not doing anything this month. Our logo tagline is "Seeking, Serving, Sharing" and I thought these hearts would be a pretty good way of shari

 Ran across a blog called Cup O Doodle a while back. Members play a game I played as a child - scribble something on a page and then try to make it into a drawing. Always loved that game. Anyway, I have done a few sketches from their posted scribbles and this is one of the first attempts. The ones that get posted on the blog are way better than what I've had time to do since most of them are "finished" and colored, but their scribble game is a fun way to get the creative juices flowing. This is my sketch with the original scribble on top.

When I was in high school I did a lot of hand lettering, especially while I was listening to the teachers or while I was at lunch. I wish I had stuck with it. This example is a sad attempt to letter one of my favorite verses. What do you think? Maybe I just need to start using a ruler. That would probably clean up my lines enough to make this pretty.

Throne worthy? Preliminary idea sketch. I've been writing and making up stories for almost as long as I can remember. The above sketch is a preliminary idea for the throne or for a seat in the queen's study for a novel called "Curse of Royalty" that I've been working on for a very long time. This story has morphed so many times that I wonder if I'm ever going to get it done. I developed the germ of this particular story when I was 15, and it's been haunting me since then. I really want to "finish" this story and get it in print but there's a lot of work left on this monster project before it would be worthy of the paper it would be printed on. Anyhoo, this second sketch is of the royal chamber key. The queen keeps this in her pocket or gives it to an attendant during the day. This key could develop a nasty habit of falling out of pockets and thus causing trouble, though there's only one point in the story where this key is a cau