Sunflowers at the Sanctuary

Two weeks ago,  I was blessed to volunteer at the Sanctuary on 8th Street, an inner-city afternoon program in Jacksonville.   For their upcoming fundraiser, I helped the kids paint a beautiful picture of a field of sunflowers.
Below shows a series of pictures that display the final piece and the process of children painting. They had no idea what this was going to look like!  I just told them to trust me and paint exactly what they saw on their little “tile” of paper.  When it was all said and done, they had painted a masterpiece!  I told them that each of their lives was like one of these tiles…You might not think it’s so special at first but when you put it in the BIG picture, it’s awesome!  Your life, your “tile”, has a significant impact on the final picture!
Can’t you see the illustration working!?  Don’t we often feel like our life, our day, doesn’t really matter…but in God’s ecomony…”He causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose.”  Romans 8:28. These kids reminded me that God has BIG plans for their lives and for ours…we just need to TRUST Him even when we can’t see the Big Picture…Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

• First select a picture.  If you get it off the internet, make sure you read the copyrights.  I used Adobe Illustrator to enlarge this picture to fit a 44″ x 25.5″ canvas and printed it out onto twelve 8.5 x 11 sheets of white cardstock.

• Cut the 8.5 x 11 sheets into 4 equal halves and lay them out on a large area to make a “puzzle”

• Make sure you number the back of the “tiles” and also have the kids put their names on the ones that they paint.  This is a very important step because just like a puzzle, all these pieces will get mixed up!

• Look how great they are doing painting the “tiles”.  They are painting right on top of the picture…exactly what they see!  I used acrylic paint…wear a smock because this paint does NOT come out!

• After the paint was completed, we embellished the “tiles” with glitter, flowers, buttons, and even made butterflies from recycled cans!  ( that will be in my next blog!)

• When I left the sanctuary…I went to Lowes (confession…my husband went to Lowes) and bought FIVE 1 x 4’s and I had them each cut to 44″…the exact width of the project.  I then glue/ wrapped each tile onto the boards with SPRAY MOUNT.  IMPORTANT…I use 3M Super 77…Don’t go cheap…you will regret it!

• After I wrapped each board I painted the sides and the edges…can’t you already see the “masterpiece!”

• I also wrapped another piece of plywood with some cool coffee colored fabric to act as my base.  I spray mounted the fabric as well as the board and ironed it down for a good STICK!

• To ensure that the 1 x 4’s are going to STAY on the fabric covered plywood, I screwed 3 screws into each board.  I creatively hid the screw underneath many a flower!   Or if you make a new hole…no worries…just put a button over it!

• VOILA!  You have the finished MASTERPIECE!  Can you believe how beautiful this is!  You should have seen the faces on the children when I showed them how their “little tile” made a HUGE impact on the finished painting!

• Look at the close up of the butterflies!  I’ll close with this from Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”