Beautiful.

 

When my daughter Olivia turned twelve years old, our family celebrated with a modified bat mitzvah -- the traditional Jewish coming-of-age rite. Olivia memorized a passage of scripture that marked a transition toward the next phase of her young womanhood, and friends and family compiled a dictionary offering our collective definitions of terms that society seems bent on warping --- words like beauty and love and friendship and faith. As a part of this process, we had a number of conversations about the way beauty is expressed and embodied. Because the mirror can be such a volatile place for a young girl coming to terms with competing ideas about what constitutes loveliness, I wanted to install a reminder of God's perspective. I am convinced that God looks at His babies -- the unrepeatable, irreducible renderings of hands and faces carved after His divine image -- and sees surpassing, sublime loveliness. When I asked Hannah to create this vinyl reminder for my kids' bathroom mirror, I requested that she follow the word with an endmark -- a period, emphasizing the finality of God's opinion. Hopefully, this caption reminds my daughter that her Creator has the last word on the face of His beloved, and that word is beautiful.

At the same time that I requested this word for my daughter, I also commissioned one for a dear friend of mine suffering from an auto-immune disorder that has caused her to lose her hair. I hope that God's view of her loveliness daily supersedes the moments of insecurity, sadness, and fear that threaten to dim the gorgeous light that shines from her heart, her life, and her overwhelmingly beautiful face.

-Amy Linnemann

The Definition of Beauty

Just look at this cutie! When I first saw this picture, my heart melted a little bit! The little girl in the picture has Spina Bifida, just like my son. Tricia, the little girl's mother, was inspired by a quote. I contacted Tricia and begged her to let me put the quote in vinyl. I love the way it turned out. Thank you, Little Mermaid, for inspiring us all.

I adopted my daughter when she was 10 months old. We were told she had Spina Bifida, and while we were completely ignorant about it, SB was not about to stop us from bringing home our daughter.

She is now 4. She rocks her wheelchair, (she loves popping wheelies and doing donuts), and she walks with a walker and braces.

On Facebook someone posted the quote, "You don't have to be able to walk to be beautiful. Just ask the mermaids." It immediately touched me. We just moved and I was planning on an elephant themed bathroom for my pachyderm loving daughter. After seeing this quote, I immediately switched gears- with the quote being the centerpiece of the theme.

I painted 2 paintings of my daughter as mermaids, I bought some mermaid fabric to make curtains, and I bought a mermaid costume to do a photoshoot of my mermaid daughter. This vinyl quote brings it all together!

-Tricia Keierleber

Wanderings

When I found this quote, I knew it was perfect for Lisa.  We were roommates on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  I have been to many of the places she talks about, and the others are on my bucket list.  Thanks, Lisa!

I love to travel.  I'm the type of girl who studies maps for fun, who checks airline ticket prices for kicks, who gets a little shaky if it has been too long since my last trip.  I'm more than a little addicted to the rush of adrenaline that comes from stepping off of a plane in a foreign airport.  I love to immerse myself in different cultures, to see how people do things in their corner of the world.  I have ridden an elephant through the jungles of Bali, gone hot-air ballooning over the outback in Australia, and trekked to isolated villages in Africa.  I have eaten crepes at the top of the Eiffel Tower, gelato in piazzas in Italy, and  goulash on a riverbank in Hungary.   I have kissed the Blarney Stone, gone sky-diving over tropical islands, and spent a Sunday afternoon at the bullfights in Spain.  I have seen strange, wonderful, and crazy things all around the world.  And the one thing that remains the same is this:  the more I see of the world, the more I realize I have so much more to see.   I want to spend every spare minute and every pinched penny exploring.  I want to ride a camel through the Sahara, climb the Great Wall of China, and stare in bewilderment at the Moai statues of Easter Island.  I want to go on safari in Africa and see the snake charmers in Marakesh.  I want to shop in the marketplaces of India and see the rain forest in Brazil.  This quote by J.R.R. Tolkien speaks to me.  It reminds me that all of my wandering ways are not for lack of knowing who I am or what I want to be.  I am not lost.  It is in travel that I truly find myself.  So here's to the wanderings. ~ Lisa Eekhoff


Lisa (R) and me on a dinner cruise on the Philippine Sea

A Full Heart

Behind every beautiful phrase I design is an even more beautiful person who has a story to tell.  I want my vinyl blog to be full of stories.  Your stories.

My first blogger to volunteer is Kari.  Kari is a wife (to a published author!), a mother of five, an artist, a home educator, and a Spina Bifida crusader.  I'm sure she wears many, many more hats that I don't know about! I'm so thankful for her encouragement.  You can read her blog here.  Thank you, Kari, for your words!

This picture.....
This picture  makes me smile. It also makes me feel slightly crazy cause well taking any picture with 5 kids is crazy. (though wearing pajama pants makes it feel somewhat better....it was sunday afternoon..pajama pants)

So if you cant read whats on the back of my car it says

If you think my hands are full, you should see my heart.

This saying means a whole whole lot to me personally. Hence it being plastered on the back of my car.

So I thought Id do a quick blog post on why.

1. I need to remind others. Yes, I might look frazzled and crazy getting in and out of my car. You might see me chasing a wheelchair zooming down the slightly sloped parking lot all while dragging a grocery cart full of kids behind me. (its happened) You might see me even slightly (of course only slightly) lose my cool with a couple of the sweet charming children. I might drop 15 items and leave 5 more behind when I come to your home. I might misplace my phone 500xs because I'm always running around calling Doctors/friends/husband and then setting it down somewhere. And  a sweet smiling stranger....or okay a stranger EVERY SINGLE TIME I leave the house might kindly come up to me and say with a laugh, "WOW You've Got Your Hands full"  And yes I do. Yes its crazy. (Yes thats pee leaking out of diapered kid)....But these kids have filled my heart even more than they have filled my hands. And I truly want everyone to know that. Because today teens are taught to work harder, work better, get better grades, go to a better college, have a better career, make more money...more more more. being a mommy isnt enough. being a stay at home mommy sure isnt enough. and I want to fight against that thought. hey being a mommy is stinkin awesome world!

2. I need to remind myself. Through all those crazy things I just described. Through the spills, the tears, the fighting, the falling, the 'I need help',  the 'mommy can you...." through the middle of the night cuddles, the pukes, the dinners, the lunches, the clean ups and the 1000 other things that I know every mommy reading this understands.  Here's the thing though. Ive noticed a trend in blogs. And dont get me wrong I get it. I GET IT.!!! I can scream that at the top of my lungs before you read this next part.
There is a going trend in blogs and they all seem to have the same theme.."Being a Mom is Hard." I like to call it the mommy martyr.  And it is. I get it. But sometimes....just sometimes I kind of get tired of seeing the martyr flag rising high for us moms.  I get tired of the, "This is so hard." Lets all go cry in our cups of coffee together and talk about how wiping rear ends is so hard.  I know I'm not going to gain any followers with this post. But here me to the end at least. Are we truly martyrs? Are our lives really truly oh so very difficult? Or do we really truly have the most amazing job and responsibility in the whole world? Are there hard days? YUP. STINK YUP.  But are we doing each other any good by wearing our martyr robes for all to see? I get the honesty and as Ive said multiple times I love it. There is beauty in it. But from personal experience. When I wear the martyr flag for all my friends to see I also wear it for my children to see. They know when they are the burden. They know when mom is fed up, They know when mommy feels like she  has given too much too many times. And I just cant imagine what that must be like. If my friends all walked around acting like they just couldnt put up with one more of my mess ups or shenanigans......well we probably wouldnt be friends any longer. And I probably feel like a totally piece of doggy poo stuck on the bottom of someones shoe.
Then I think of the women who cant have children or who maybe have had multiple miscarriages. Or maybe have one child and would desperately love more.  What must they think of our martyr flags?? If I were them Id want to jerk it out of our scrawny spit up spewed hands and shred it! But really. Nothing puts it into perspective quite like knowing not everyone has this option, not everyone gets to stay home and have kid after kid after kid. So who am I to wave my martyr flag? Who am I to complain and gripe and roll my eyes at something God has BLESSED ME with!!! 
So with all of that said....I need to remind myself. When my hands feel so full I cant take another second. I cant take another day. I cant take another week. I need to remind myself..How blessed. How amazing. How crazy good God is. Because even though my hands are full.....and they are VERY FULL.....my heart is that much more full. And sometimes I want to raise my martyr flag the highest of all.....

God is good. God has blessed.

A Little Joy for our Hallway

We are Happy, Happy, Happy in this house. :)

World Traveling Vinyl

I'm so excited to post these pics!  My college friend Anita and her husband are missionaries in Burkina Faso, West Africa.  After over a year of language study, they have just recently moved to their permanent residence.  The wanted some lettering for their new home.


The first lettering I ever made was for their first home in Burkina.

This is what I made- I still like it even though it is obviously a first attempt.

After I made this for a friend, Anita asked me to make one to put in her new kitchen.  I really like the color  of her walls.  They decided to keep the leveling bar on the wall :)

I think this is in their guest room.  I was planning to visit them next spring, but since we are expecting a new baby, I'll have to wait a little longer.

Anita and Ken welcomed their first baby in April.  They picked out a name and kept it a secret from everyone except me so that I could make some lettering for their baby's room. It was kind of fun to be in on the secret.  Isn't Natalie Jewell a sweet name for a sweet little girl?  I love the verse they picked to go with her name.








Ken and Anita, welcome home!!!!  Thanks for letting me be part of your housewarming!

Vinyl for Sunday School Rooms

Someone asked me to make some vinyl for their nursery and Sunday school rooms.  I usually charge $6/sq foot for vinyl but for church projects I will always make it $5/sq ft.

Here are the final pictures: