Secret Butterfly

"I've gotta secret I won't tell...

who kissed who down by the well...

'till the wedding bells ring out...

diddle diddle dumplin' shut my mouth"

That was a song that I loved singing with my mom when I was little. We would take turns singing the melody while the other sang harmony.

I'll be the first to admit that I struggle with keeping secrets, so don't tell me any. When I was little and a friend told me a secret, I would just about burst wanting to tell someone. The excitement was a lot to deal with. When I bought my mom presents for her birthday, I would try to keep them a secret, but I always ended up telling her before she opened them what I got her. Lately the secrets that were hard for me not to share were when I made design teams and had to wait to tell on my blog or facebook. Social networking really makes keeping anything secret hard, because we tell everyone what we are eating, thinking, doing...etc.

For this week's devotional at Stampin' Sisters in Christ,

Grace chose this scripture about secret...

Matthew 6:6 "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room,

close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret,

and your Father who sees what is done in

secret will reward you."

When I read this week's scripture, I studied the verses that came before and after it. Jesus was talking about giving to the poor, praying and fasting. His admonition was to give, pray and fast in secret instead of doing it as a show for others. It all comes down to our motivations. If we do our good deeds as show for others, we are looking for their approval, and we get all the glory. If we do them in secret, we are doing them as an act of worship to God, and He is the one who gets the glory. I am going to work hard this week to check my motivations. I want God to get the glory for what I do.

To God be the glory, to God be the glory, to God be the glory for the thing he has done.

The challenge that Grace gave us was to make a card with something hidden at first. I made a criss-cross card with a card that pulls out. I used paper from my DCWV Mariposa Stack. I decorated the outside of the criss-cross with two butterflies. The yellow one on the left is a Martha Stewart butterfly. The one on the right is a Layers of Color butterfly from Butterfly Collector Set. I ran the dp through my cuttlebug using my script embossing folder. I stitched the panels together with my sewing machine. On the pull out card. I added lace. I used an embossing pen to draw an outline on the printed butterfly. I added gold ep and heat embossed.

Check out what my Stampin' Sisters in Christ have created.

Chris

Grace

Kris

Linda

Lisa

Miesje

Pegggysue

Rebekka

Sabrina