Ministry Appreciation Month

Growing up as a Pastor's kid, I was keenly aware of the amount of time that both my mom and dad gave to their various congregations. And not just the two of them, but the whole family gets involved in serving. My sister and I used to sit in the second pew of my dad's church - alone, as both parents were preaching and playing. We knew by the imperceptible shake of my mom's head if we were in trouble for being rowdy. And we weren't. We had our little bags of Cheerios and our little notebooks to draw in. I did the same thing with my kids!

I began playing piano when I was four, as teaching piano was my mom's job then. But I really began to play when my dad pastored two country churches. I was ten, and neither had an accompanist for their services. My mom was already playing at our home church, and after that, Dad and I would get in the car and drive an hour to the west, we'd preach and play, and an hour later, another half hour to the west. Hymn playing is the quickest way to learn difficult things: chord changes every beat, timing of playing and stopping for other parts of the service, and just learning the wide variety of songs needed in just one hour - or a little more. I loved it. After that I accompanied Sunday services for almost 50 years almost every Sunday somewhere. And may be picking it up again here in the near future.

So this card is for all the family members whose Dad is a Pastor. There is a great support system behind him. A lot of weekend planning while other families are out doing this and that. And it's nice to recognize the sacrifices made for always being there 24/7 for the church family, when needed. 

I started with a completely different stencil and color scheme, but finally went back to this gorgeous red of fall - Barn Door Distress Oxide. I used it for the stencil, as well as the large leaf, along with a bit of Fired Brick on the edges. The smaller leaf is a darker coat of Dried Marigold. Stenciling is one of my favorite backgrounds to make! To tie the two halves of the card together, I used a strip of paper from the Retro Summer 6x6 by Craft Consortium. It was a perfect match!

You can find out more about the products I used today on the Stamp Simply Blog!

Stamp Simply Supplies

• Pastor & Ministry Appreciation
• Give Thanks Bundle
• Harvest Bundle
• Fishtail Banners
• Kaisercraft Rhinestones
• Tim Holtz Stencil - Flourish
• Craft Consortium Retro Summer 6x6
• VersaFine Clair Nocturne

Other Supplies:

• white, cinnamon cardstock
• Distress Oxides: Barn Door, Fired Brick, Fired Marigold
• gold metallic thread
• liquid glue
• foam tape