A Very Crafty Vella

Some time back I was stuck inside on a rainy day with a bored 1 year old who likes making lion noises. The obvious thing to do was to make a lion mask.

Here is the result. We painted a paper plate together, let it dry and then added the paper mane later on. Rolling the paper was a little tedious for the 1 year old but the gluing part was fun! Attach a ruler to the back and voila! A lion has been created!

Dino the dinosaur is my latest creation made from wool left over from the Union Jack cushion I knitted and a little bit of green I found at my favourite wool shop. The pattern was in a book I borrowed from the library called "Kitted Dinosaurs" by Tina Barrett.


This particularly creature is apparently a Spinosaurus, the largest meat-eating dinosaur. They had a sail running down their backs to disperse heat, attract mates and intimidate other dinosaurs. I have my doubts about dinosaurs in general, but we shall leave that for another blog post and just accept the above as doctrine - it was printed in a knitting book about dinosaurs after all!

I'm hoping to knit some more dinosaurs if the library will let me keep the book long enough. In the mean time, I hope the little boy who received this dinosaur for his birthday finds it to be lots of fun. When was the last time you received a knitted dinosaur for your birthday?!

Today I thought I'd share an idea I stole a while back and have found really helpful. It's not a craft idea but its my blog so it turns out I can blog about whatever I want!

My inspiration comes from a friend of mine who lives in India. I met David in 2003 on a mission trip. David's father is the pastor of a church. Last count, David has memorised 1000 verses of Scripture and his father, Gali has memorised 4500. Apparently, Gali recites 1500 verses each morning during his personal time of praise and prayer. I'm not exactly sure how long it would take me to read 1500 verses aloud, let alone recite them from memory but my guess is its longer than I currently spend studying my Bible. I think some of their devotion to memorisation would stem from the reality of the lack of access to the Bible in their country. However, given that they both have copies of the Scriptures this is not all there is to it. Their motivation stems from their love for the Scriptures and their firm belief that it has the power to change lives. It has bugged me ever since I met David and his family that I have memorised so little Scripture and devote so little time to this practise. So late last year I began to change...

I've long thought that memorising large chunks of Scripture would be more helpful than memorising individual verses all over the place. Remember the context of verses helps us understand what they actually mean - if I had a dollar for each time I have heard Jeremiah 29:11 quoted and interpreted in fairly dubious ways I'd have enough money for a new deck by now!

So given that my husband's favourite passage is 1 Corinthians 15 and I heard some excellent talks on that chapter at Engage 2011 I thought I'd start there. By the way - download those talks by Rory Shiner and listen to them here - they are life changing!

I found a system for memorisation that I have since discovered is genius. I stole it from Carrie Gaul. It's really simple and easy to get started and so far, it works.

The principle is as follows:

Practise each verse once a day for seven weeks

Then,

Practise the verse once a week for seven months

Then,

Practise the verse once a month for seven years

So in week 1 you start with one verse and you write it down each day. The next week you add a new verse to your list and write down both verses each day. The third week you'll have three verses and so on. After seven weeks you'll have seven verses but that first verse you'll have done once a day for seven weeks so its now ready to move to the once a week chart.

I always practise my "once a week" verses on a Monday, so Monday gets to be quite a big day - potentially 28 verses if my maths is correct! I type the verses instead of handwriting those days so that its quicker!

Then Tuesday to Friday are easier, usually only the 7 verses I've got on the "Once a day for seven weeks chart". I hand write the verses for Tuesday - Thursday and then I say the verses aloud on Friday. That can be surprisingly challenging because it doesn't give you time to think ahead as much as when you are writing.

As an aside, if I miss a day, I leave the tick box blank and at the end of the seven weeks I keep practising them once each day until I've filled in all the blanks. Only then do I move them onto the once a week pile. I think this just ensures I actually know the verse really well before graduating onto the next level! It does mean my list each day gets longer, if I find its getting to long I just don't introduce a new verse on Monday for a week so that I can get everything back under control again!

So far I've memorised 1 Corinthians 15 v 1 - 19 and another 11 random verses I wanted to learn for my Moore College exam. If I keep going at this rate its going to take me 20 years to learn 1000 verses, but that's ok! It's kinda ironic that I'm writing this blog this week since I haven't got back into my daily memorising since my Moore College exam a few weeks ago. Hopefully this blog encourages me to get stuck back into it on Monday.

I've made up my own charts because I didn't like the ones Carrie made - if you'd like a copy, just let me know :)

Anyway, that's all for today folks :)

Another craft day at the Velladrome.

I had an extra child so I was keen on "no-mess" craft. This was perfect. I really like that there is no glue involved. Apart from when one of the kids decided it'd be fun to throw the whole tub of little bits of square tissue paper all over the floor we were completely mess-free!

I used tissue paper instead of cellophane, worked just as well.

The most frustrating part is trying to keep the kids entertained whilst separating the contact from the protective covering but apart from that it was really fun and I was surprised how well the kids managed it (16 -18 months).

Check it out at: http://www.craftscope.com/stained-glass-window/