And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
Deuteronomy 6:9
A few years ago I heard a speaker at a homeschool conference give a workshop about being intentional. There was way too much covered in his workshop to go into detail in a single blog post, but one of his points was being intentional in the atmosphere of your home. He spoke of even the decor having a purpose . He and his wife had chosen to display objects on their walls of Biblical or Historical significance. There is nothing wrong with pretty pictures. We have several nice landscapes scenes hanging in our home. :-)
His point was that we could display things that were important. The children and myself spend a lot of time looking at our walls. We eat most of our meals here, we attend work/school here. The walls of our home can offer great influence over our thoughts.
I wanted to be more proactive in getting scripture into my children's heads. Over the last few years, I have found a few signs here and there that contained scripture which I wanted all of the members of my family to meditate. If I could find a way to personalize scripture, that would be an even better use of our wall space.
Around the first of the year, I saw this verse on a large canvas. It was surrounded by foot prints. I made plans to create one for our home. Shortly after I gathered supplies, I learned we would be welcoming a new little one so I hated to make the canvas when it would be out of date in just a few months. I also realized that because we plan to leave the size of our family completely up to the Lord, I couldn't predict the size of canvas I would need to be able to include each future possible child.
For my birthday, my sister {
Robin} created the above canvas with 3rd John 1:4 painted on it. I set to work creating the rest of the display.
I began by painting 8 x 10 canvases in the same blue color. Four of our children's footprints are so large, that an 8 x 10 was necessary. I found a great deal on a package of canvases at WalMart and purchased them there.
Then with Kent's help, I footprinted each child. After the paint was dry I let each kiddo, that could, write their own name.
The finished product was a large wall display with room for more! It's perfect for our growing family.
Because I had already purchased supplies, I wanted to complete another canvas. I also laid a coat of paint as the first step in creating this wall art. Kent and I discussed it and decided that we liked the slightly rustic look and depth that only one coat of paint gave the canvas.
The next step involved using Microsoft Publisher to create a document with the words I wanted to display. I had to play around with the fonts and size to get it to fit just right. After printing, I colored the back of the pages with chalk. Then using a pencil, I traced over each letter. I bought paint pens to do the writing but after a few letters they just weren't working. Instead, I found a fine point brush and painted the letters on. This canvas now hangs in the hall by the front door where our guitars hang.
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