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This is part 3 of a series on my love for tea!  You can check out part 1 and part 2 if you’re interested in some household tips for using tea, as well as some ways of brewing your tea and some of my favourite helpers in the kitchen for making tea!

This week I want to talk about keeping your tea available as a means of hospitality.  As we all know, tea is a wonderful beverage to serve after dinner and any other time of entertaining.  It’s a social thing, and it’s one that we enjoy sharing with our guests.  

In our home, we don’t just have guests over for dinner though…they’re over at all times of the day, invited and uninvited, and for days at a time!  Our house is always busy and some people refer to it as a "hostel"!  As such, it’s good for us to have our tea out and available for people to use so they can help themselves.  We’ve turned our kitchen table in a beverage station permanently, and this is what it looks like:

  <– Full table display   <– Up close of one box, sugar, honey and cups.

It was especially useful this past weekend when we had 14 people coming through our doors!  In one box I have Twinings tea (my favourite brand) and in another I have Stash tea (another one of my favourites).  In the basket is an assortment of green teas someone gave me, and I also keep the sugar, some honey and a couple of mugs ready and available.  The fruit is a nice touch too, but has nothing to do with tea.  :)

If I know people are coming over, I usually boil the water just ahead of time and put it in my carafe and leave it on the table as well so people don’t even have to worry about boiling their water! 

It’s just a nice way to let people know they’re welcome in our home, and that they can make themselves at home.  

"Tea pot is on, the cups are waiting, favourite chairs anticipating, no matter what I have to do, my friend there’s always time for you." (Unknown)

This past week has been lots of fun.  We’ve had some friends pop through from Toronto.  It’s been good to hang out, and share our lives with them.  In general, it’s a fun way to spend time with people.  We love using our home to hang out with people, to host people, etc.  I think it’s what Jesus has called us to do.  In Matthew 25 he speaks of caring for those who are hungry, who have no home, who have no clothes…

Sometimes that’s a really difficult thing for us to do.  It’s hard for us to give up our space and to allow others to be served by us.  We get caught up with ourselves and our own schedules.  I’m guilty of this.  It happens to me all the time.  And then I have moments where God reminds me that the resources I have been given are just that…a gift.  They aren’t mine - they’re his. 

I am grateful for those who pass through our doors.  Sometimes people pop by for prayer.  Sometimes people come by for a cup of coffee (or tea, in our case!) and a conversation.  Others come by and end up helping to plant our garden (thanks!).  And still others send us an e-mail or give us a call and let us know they’re coming into to town, and ask if they can stay.  And, in the case of one girl, she came by in January and hasn’t left yet.    We love it!  It reminds us daily that God has given us so many resources and it is our duty to use them wisely. 

At our cell group on Thursday we were reminded of the story in Mark of the widow who gave two small copper coins.  It didn’t seem like much, but to her it was all she had.  That’s when it counts - not when we give up things that don’t matter, or give what won’t affect us - but when we give until it hurts.  God has blessed us with many fine things in this world - let’s use them to His glory!

This post is linked to Amy’s Finer Things.

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Have you joined the h2O challenge?

Read here to find out more about joining in the h2O challenge! 

I have SO much to be thankful for these days!  Where do I even begin??  I’ll do a point-form list…

1. The weather lately has been AMAZING.  Bright sunshine, and clear blue skies!  Gorgeous!

2. Being able to visit friends and family on vacation and being a part of two weddings.  

3. Gardening - getting SO many raised beds done (future blog post…), and planting vegetables with friends, and making our backyard into a "community garden" of sorts!  Peas, carrots, spinach, broccoli, onions, tomatoes, strawberries, chives, parsley…and more to come!!

4. Having a wonderful husband who does so much for me!

5. A great friend who gave me a punch bowl!!  I’ve been wanting one for 3 years, and could never find one…God bless her for thinking of me and surprising me!!

6. Being able to write all my blogs for you lovely people to read.  

What are you thankful for??  To find out what other people are thankful for, check out this link. 

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE to decorate.  I like to move around my furniture.  I like to re-purpose something and use it again in another way!

A few weeks ago Peter and I decided that we wanted to re-paint our bathroom.  Truthfully, it was a nasty blue colour that we just hated.  If you liked it, I apologize.  But it just wasn’t us!!  We went for a bold red, and we love it!  Here are the before and after pictures:

Here are some ways that you can save money when re-decorating:

1.) Buy paint from the mis-tint rack at your local home hardware store.  People choose colours all the time then hate it and it has to be sold off cheaper!  Make sure to check that it’s the right type of paint for your room.

2.) Check out my previous post on unexpected art to see cheap ways to decorate your space. 

3.) You can buy some cheap pieces to change the feel of any room from the dollar store!  YES, the dollar store.  I found our shower curtain at our dollar store for just $3!  It’s still a nice fabric one, and it does the trick for what we want.  :)

4.) A nice way to welcome people into your home in either a guest bedroom, or even your main bathroom is to include a welcome basket.  I love doing these, and have found that people really get good use out of them.   

5.) Sometimes it’s hard to decide what colour to paint your room.  Here are a couple of sites that you might find useful for choosing your paint colour:

On this site you can choose the type of room, and then a general layout (pick the one that is most similar to your house, considering the main features - windows location, fireplace, etc.).  Then you can change the colours of the furniture, the drapes, and the walls!  It’s not your room, but it can give you an idea of how the colours will go together.  I have personally tried this one and enjoyed it!  

On this site you can pay $10 to have the ability upload your own pictures of your room so that you can brainstorm your particular room.  

6.) Go shopping in your house!  Take a look around and see what decor you can switch around.  Which candle could go in your new room, and be replaced with another?  Does a picture look better switched out?  What about a throw blanket?  Is there one in your cupboard you haven’t been using that would match the new decor?   

7.) Plants: fake or real, they add a lush feeling to your space!  We have many fake trees, as well as a few sturdy real plants that we can’t kill.  :)  I’ll do another post on that in the future, but just to give you a glimpse, I love bamboo and aloe vera plants!  

So what tips do you have for re-decorating your house? 

I have made this card a bunch of times, and in multiple different ways!  It is something that can be done for birthdays, showers, weddings, you name it!  For weddings I have incorporated recipes for date nights, and their colours.  For birthdays I have included pictures, Bible verses, etc.  Here is how you do it:

Supplies:

Two 6" squares of printed paper (not cardstock) for the covers

Three 8 1/2" squares of cardstock for the pages

Two 4 1/2" squares of cardboard

24" of ribbon

Making the Pages:

The three 8 1/2" squares of cardstock are folded into something similar to a basic origami square base, and are then taped together into a collapsing accordian shape.

Bring one side over to meet the opposite side and fold in half (book fold).  Open and match the two remaining sides and fold in half again.  Turn the paper over so the creases appear as "bumps" rather than valleys, and take one corner and match with the opposite corner, making a diagonal fold.  With the side facing up that has a "mountain" diagonal fold, match the corners of the two remaining full squares and tuck in the two squares that are divided into triangles (by the diagonal folds).

Overlap the three sheets joining the square blocks to form an accordian chain.

Making the Album Covers:

Wrap the 2 cardboard squares with the 6" square patterned paper.  Attach the length of ribbon across the middle of the back of one of the cover pieces (place the mid-point of the ribbon at the midpoint of the 4 1/2" square, the ends of the ribbon extending beyond the sides).  Tape each cover piece to the top and bottom squares of the stack of pages.  The ribbon wraps around the card and ties it shut.

  

This past weekend was amazing.  We had the incredible blessing of being in Illinois with friends and speaking to a room full of youth who are passionate for God!!  The weather was very warm, the sun was shining (during the day!!), and conversation was wonderful.  We were very blessed to spend time with all these great people, and I know we will feel the blessings of that weekend for a long while!  :)