SUMMER + Fridays!

School is over! *cheering* Yay! (Well it is for me anyway, I'm really sorry if you're still in... Keep hope, the end is near!)

So without that huge mass of other stuff to do, do you know what that leaves me?... TIME! Wooo! And with that time, I plan to travel, sleep, swim, do summer homework, and... drumroll please... Actually post on this blog! Yay!

So, starting this Friday, I hereby promise to have a weekly post! So check back here every Friday for updates on what's going on in my life, what God's been doing in my life, and other fun stuff!

Enjoy your summer and I'll see you on Friday!

♥kelli

Mission accomplished!

Hey ya'll. (Woah. That was weird. I never say ya'll.) Sorry about ditching you. Again. I fail, right? Right. So anyway..

Bible wreath
I finally finished it!! I decided to go with the second link I posted (the loopy one) and it turned out really well. Here's some pictures of the process:

Close-up of the pages. It was cool to see individual verses on the wreath.

Halfway done! :)

The final product! Once all the pages were on, I lightly spray painted it gold to give it kind of a "royal" look and hung it on a simple red ribbon.

So there you go! It only took me a few hours to put the loops on, and another couple hours to paint it and let the paint dry and everything. Overall it was a fun project that my youth leader and peers will love.

Hope your Christmas was great and your New Year is great!!
♥kelli

Bible Wreath - part 2!

Hah. Scratch that. I found two different, & hopefully better, Bible wreath guides. Check them out or just look at the final picture; I don't really care, but if you could help me out and let me know which one you like better! :D (click on the picture to be taken to the site if you so desire. Haha.)

 (go to page 5 on the little blue arrows to view)
-or-


Comment below and let me know which wreath you think I should make with Bible pages :)

♥kelli

Bible Wreath :D

Somebody slap me, I'm terrible at this. I'm sorry.

On the bright side, I have a new craft I want to do!! Recently my youth pastor cleaned out our "Bible Bucket," the bin of Bibles we have on hand for those who forget them. Anyway, at the bottom there were at least 50 pages of the Bible that had fallen out over the years. I expressed interest in them, saying they would make a fun medium for some kind of craft, and he asked me to try and make a Christmas wreath out of them. I, being the overly crafty and creative kind of person I am, accepted the challenge and went home to do my research. I came up with this tutorial video:

(there's also a second video on how to decorate it if anyone's interested: http://youtu.be/dhRyy7N3H-k )
I haven't started it yet, sadly. But this is for multiple reasons: one, I haven't had time. Hehe, surprised? And two, IT'S NOT EVEN THANKSGIVING YET!! (Granted, that's tomorrow, but still. It's a little early for Christmas wreaths, even for me.) So... yeah. I'll definitely post pics when I'm done :) I'm so excited!! :D

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

♥kelli

Epic Fail.

I have not posted in almost a month. I. AM. SO. SORRY. :'(

ANYWAY... At youth group tonight, our pastor taught on 7 tips on living and praying like Jesus. All these instructions come from Jesus's prayer for himself at the Last Supper, found in John 17:1-5.

1. Lift your eyes to Him.

• Jesus looks up to Heaven when praying, much like we do - we close our eyes and focus on Heaven. I believe this helps us become closer to God and Jesus and have a stronger "connection" (for lack of a better word) to him.

2. Call out to God by name - Father

• Jesus calls God Father, as he often does, and so should we! I mean, he really IS our Father - we were all born again in and unto him!! So really, we should have such a close relationship with him that we can call on him and say "hey dad, thanks for ___. It was perfect, of course...." and so on.

3. Align yourself to God's timetable

• Jesus says that "the time has come." He knew that God's plan for his crucifixion included a specific time. This is important because it applies to all of us - we so often think something should happen when WE want it to, but God's timing is so much more accurate and always ends up better.

4. Go after God's glory

• When we accomplish something we're proud of, for example, dropping time at a swim meet, we are supposed to give GOD the glory for our success. Because really, OUR success isn't even our own - it's GOD'S, because he GAVE us the ability and strength to do whatever  we did. Simple put: give God the glory in all you do so that he will glorify you in Heaven.

5. Embrace eternal life

• We all know (hopefully anyway) that God promises us eternal life for following Jesus's example. So, obviously, to embrace eternal life, we must embrace Jesus and all his love.

6. Rest in His finished work

• Though many look anxiously to the future, with apprehensive thoughts like "what am I going to do?" or "I don't know where I'm going in life," we are all told - by Jesus - to rest because we are a completed work. God created us perfectly, and we are complete in him. So, we are told to find rest and peace in that.

7. Look forward to the glory to come

• Be EXCITED for Heaven!!! It seems many people are scared or nervous or even weirded out by the thought of Heaven. But it's not going to be weird or scary at all!! It's going to be PARADISE, people!! Imagine: We'll get to walk around with all our Christian friends, and even better, we get to hang out with Jesus himself!! LET'S GET EXCITED!!! :D

So... yeah. I hope these simple notes are encouraging / helpful / useful to you in some way :) Have a great rest of the week!! :)

♥kelli

Forever Reign

First of all, sorry I haven't posted in a while!! Homework suddenly got a whole lot worse, but I'm caught up now so I have time to post :)

Last night at youth group, we sang some new songs I hadn't heard before, and I really want to share the lrics with you :) It's a good song. You should look it up on YouTube. :)

Forever Reign <3 bu  Hillsong

You are good You are good

When there's nothing good in me

You are love You are love

On display for all to see

You are light You are light

When the darkness closes in

You are hope You are hope

You have covered all my sin

You are peace You are peace

When my fear is crippling

You are true You are true

Even in my wandering

You are joy You are joy

You're the reason that I sing

You are life You are life

Even death has lost its sting

Oh, I'm running to your arms

I'm running to your arms,

The riches of your love

Will always be enough

Nothing compares to your embrace

Light of the world, forever reign

You are more You are more

Than my words could ever say

You are Lord You are Lord

All creation will proclaim

You are here You are here

In your presence I'm made whole

You are God You are God

Of all else I'm letting go

Oh, I'm running to your arms

I'm running to your arms,

The riches of your love

Will always be enough

Nothing compares to your embrace

Light of the world, forever reign

Hallelujah, forever,

All the glory, forever

All the praise to You

My heart will sing

No other name

Jesus, Jesus

Oh, I'm running to your arms

I'm running to your arms,

The riches of your love

Will always be enough

Nothing compares to your embrace

Light of the world, forever reign

Good song. The end.

♥kelli

3 things.

1. Alliance Youth Conference, part 2
It was amazing!! Workshops, human videos, concert, great teaching, and oh so many memories :) If anyone's interested, there will be another AYC in San Diego on November 11 and 12. Register @ OneGenerationUnderGod.com for only $19 presale :) I encourage you to go and grow in your walk with God!! :)

2. 9/11
Wow. With all the news and documentaries and articles, it was hard NOT to see this tragic day coming. To all those who lost loved ones, I am truly sorry. Know that half of America has you in their prayers and I can't even imagine the pain you must feel. Every year I am humbled by the memories of the brave people that risked their lives in an attempt to save anyone they could. We are truly indebted to your service. Thank you.

3. Just for fun
I am in Graphic Design this year at school, and we're working in Photoshop this semester, and I LOVE it!! I actually want to be a graphic designer when I grow up, so I'm really enjoying the class. Anyway, just for fun, I made this :)

Pretty cool, right? I think so. It was fun to make, anyway.

Hope your week is great!

♥kelli

Alliance Youth Conference, Part 1

I just had an amazing night at the Alliance Youth Conference!! I had the privilege of hearing Mike Wilson speak and an amazing rap group called Go Project who I definitely encourage you to look up - they have a great message and very upbeat, dance-able music :) I'm going back tomorrow so I'll post more details then!

♥kelli

My Head is in the Clouds...

Clouds.

What makes them so amazing? I think it's because of God. Really. I mean, how often do you look up at the clouds and say "Wow. God is amazing" ? I actually do that a lot. With many things, but lately mostly with clouds.

For some reason, it's been kinda rainy where I live and so naturally, there's a lot of clouds. Which then makes the sunsets gorgeous. Which then makes me wish I had one of those huge, expensive cameras to get a picture of it with. But that's beside the point.

Looking at the clouds, I feel small. They expand outside of my peripheral vision, going as far as I can see and then some. What kind of natural phenomenon could this be!? I believe beauty can't occur by itself. You don't just wake up with your hair perfect and make up on and everything (side note - I don't think make up is what makes you beautiful! God made you perfect, and he didn't make you with make up. In a weird way, wearing make up is just changing the way God made you! But I'll talk about that more later.)... you have to MAKE it that way. Same with clouds, for example. They didn't just POOF! -appear one day. God spent a whole day perfecting them, along with the Heavens and the Earth. Shouldn't you appreciate them just thinking about that?!

Anyway, that's been on my mind lately and I guess this blog is my spot to share my random thoughts. :)

♥kelli

Owl City Music Mondays!

Hey guys! Guess what I found! Owl City has been making little websites for his Music Mondays "project" out of all his new songs on All Things Bright and Beautiful!! I'll post all the old links here and post new links on Mondays when they come out :) Enjoy!

Deer In The Headlights - smilebecauseyourethedeerintheheadlights.com
Galaxies - kisstheplanetgoodbye.com
The Real World - realityisalovelyplace.com
Dreams Don't Turn To Dust - maybeimjustadreamer.com
Honey and the Bee - backyardofbutterflies.com
Hospital Flowers: happinessreturnedtome.com

Seriously! Don't be click-shy!! Go click on them cause they're amazing :)

Bye for now!
♥kelli