Made with hugs ...

     Truth be told, a lot of my crafting projects and ideas come from the fact that I don't have a money tree growing in my yard, and sometimes I see something and think "Well, heck.  I can make that for much less than an arm and a leg!"

    That's what happened with this project.  I saw a cute little bird and branch box for sale on Zulily, which was probably worth the cost of it to someone ... else.

     But the more I looked at it, the more I kept thinking "Well, heck.  I can make that for much less than an arm and a leg!"  In this case, it wouldn't have cost an arm and a leg, but maybe a left hand, or a left foot.

     Thursday night, while the rest of White Sulphur Springs was buying up bread and milk in advance of the next winter storm, I was playing with my air-dry clay.  Flipping through a pad of scrapbooking paper looking for the perfect background.  Picking through fallen branches on the side of the yard in the starting snowfall, looking for the perfect branch.  Feeling grateful that the $5 can of "miss-tint" paint I had thought was white was actually a pale pink.

     And for some weird reason, the scripture Matthew 6:25-26 kept coming to mind every time I looked at that picture from Zulily.

25 “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?

     Of course, my little birds are nowhere near the perfection of mass-produced ones in ceramic molds, glazed and fired in kilns somewhere in China.  But that's what makes them unique.

     Friday morning (after I shoveled the new 4" of snow from the front walk) one of my morning devotionals included Matthew 6:25-27.  There it was again.

    After work, I found the perfect paper and the branches I had picked through had dried enough to find one to fit the box I was going to use.

     Saturday morning during my Bible reading ... Matthew 6:25-26 ... and a friend from church came to mind with the thought that this was a gift for her.

    So it was ...