Giving Thanks Always....

Hi Y'all,
I have another present for a certain person that really appreciates my humor and God given talent. After the first song at our church they do announcements then we do a meet and greet to everyone and yep we are a noisy group saying hello,giving hugs and sharing laughter. At such a time this past week one of our pastors started his sentence with: One of your amazing creations ended up on my desk and It was in a plastic bag tied and my name wasn't on it so I didn't know if it was for me or not.... Love the heart of this guy! I said OH yes I though perhaps someone had thrown it away.... It was a item I needed to fix for the church.. His face fell a little.. oh how can I disappoint this person I love so much in the Lord! So I came home ate my lunch and had a conversation with God in my  head about What could I make for this person? I rested a bit then went to my room finishing up some gluing on one of the Christmas projects.  As I worked I kept looking at the  larger cut out pieces of the mouse I had, I smiled and went to work.
Now when God puts something like this on my heart I pray ask what can I make and then I pretty much let him give me the ideas. I glued the mouse together having no clue what I would be doing next but I kept getting a verse in my head. (often he will do this with me)

 Deuteronomy 8:10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, Praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

Now this can mean a lot of things if you think on it a bit but for my project it was a practical sentence and one I giggled at the Lords humor.

Start with the Large Ghost pumpkin from Pick a Pumpkin SVG Kit. I only glued 4 side pieces together and cut off the top have to show that the little mouse had eaten  quite a bit! I took four accent pieces and embossed them with my Cuttlebug Forest branches emboss folder. I used Really Rust Ink from Stampin up to bring the embossing out. Then I embossed four more pieces with Darcy's Wood Grain emboss folder for the outside inking those as well with Really Rust Ink. I used scissors and cut off the top portion of the pumpkin pieces. I glued the Forest Branches embossed pieces to the inside to look like the inside of a pumpkin and the Wood grain Embossed accent pieces to the outside. Make the lid but don't put it on yet. Then I took the itty bitty flower punch I have from Stampin up and made "bites out of the sides top and the lid pieces of the pumpkin. Ink the edges a bit just to add definition. 

The mouse is made using the strawberry from the Sweets For My Sweet SVG Kit. Sizes for the strawberry will be given at the bottom of this post. The pumpkin is made at the size it imports. Cut your mouse out of your desired color for your mouse and glue the strawberry together when you get to the top of the strawberry thread a twine through the holes at the top and tie a knot at the base. Loosely twist the two twine pieces together and use another smaller piece of twine to tie a knot for the end of the tail. Trim to the desire length and use your scissors to fray the ends. Glue your accent pieces on and glue the top and bottom of the strawberry together. Cut four leaves from Acorn Autumn SVG Kit, these can be found in the extras file. Again sizes will be at the bottom of this post. Curl and squish the leaves a bit so they resemble paws. Hot glue the bottom paws in place the cut off about a 1/4 of the leaves for the front paws off toward the back of the stem. Bend the back of the cut off portion down and hot glue in place. I did the whiskers a bit different than I have in the past. I used a very thinly cut piece of black card stock and used my little scissors to cut a slit on either side of the length of the card stock, so that it had splits in either side. I left the center solid so I could bend it in half and glue the bent portion to the "nose" of my mouse. then I trimmed and carefully curled the thin card stock pieces a bit. I really didn't have to curl to much as it did that naturally. I took an extra piece I had trimmed off and glued that to the center of the "nose" area as well. I used a small black pearl for the nose and the medium sizes for the eyes.  The ears are small tear drop shapes that I curled in with my stylus and chalked with my pearlescent chalks. I usually use the tool that came with them but I tried a cosmetic q-tip this time that I got at the dollar tree and it worked much better. The pointed ends of the tear shapes are bent and glued to the top of the head. I added a bit of "blush" color to the tummy area as well.  I glued the "chewed" portion of the pumpkin top to the top of the mouses head and made a stem using the Scarecrow's hat from Leaves are Falling SVG Kit, glue that as well to the top of the pumpkin lid. I added chewed pumpkin leaves and vines from Gourds Galore SVG Collection. Under the mouses backside is a small polished rock that you can purchase in quantity at the dollar tree. I used Glossy Accents to adhere that to the pumpkin and is there only for weight.

Now when my daughter saw this little guy she said he needed pumpkin seeds for the inside so I made those using the tear drop shape and adding ink for shading. Make two one larger than the other and slightly cup the smaller one, glue the smaller one centered on top of the larger one. (this will give the ridge that the pumpkin seeds have)  Ink both edges with Tim Holtz Vintage papers ink, then use the Itty Bitty Flower punch and take a small bite out of the seeds ink those edges and glue to the inside of the pumpkin. On the Bottom of the pumpkin at the middle back is two more of the rocks I chose green to camouflage it a bit. I glued those to the bottom to help the half of pumpkin or whatever the mouse left LOL stand. 

The tag was made last. I used the Print n cut feature on my machine to print the verse then drew a rounded rectangle around the words and added a hole for the tail to go  through. Now you could use a tag from Any of Mary's terrific tag files like Tags Galore SVG Collection or even the Double Tags Galore SVG Collection but I did a quick box to make mine. If you choose to make your own tag be sure and choose a different color for the cutting lines of the tag so you can choose to uncheck the box while your machine prints the words, then just uncheck the words and check the outlines when you go to cut it. thread the tail through the hole and hot glue it into place. There you have it our little mouse with words of encouragement. But what if you don't want the bible verse? Well you could always say Give Thanks for thanksgiving... 

I am hoping Daniel loves this little guy and shows it to many as we can all be encouraged to give thanks for all we have been given. Thanks so much for stopping by and to all of you... Happy Crafting and Many blessings! Sharalyn

SVG Cuts Kits and Collections Used:
Pick A Pumpkin SVG Kit
Sweets For My Sweet SVG Kit
Leaves Are Falling SVG Kit 
Acorn Autumn SVG Kit 
Gourds Galore SVG Collection 

Supplies Used:
American Craft Card Stock: Concrete, Olive, Apricot, Latte
Neenah Desert Storm Card Stock
Recollections Card Stock: Black
Tim Holtz, Vintage Papers Distress Ink
Ranger Glossy Accents
Pebbles Pearlescent Chalks
Twinery: Grey and White Twine 
Recollections Black Adhesive Pearls
Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive
Hot glue
Detail Glue Gun
Polished Rocks From dollar Tree

Approximate Mouse sizes:
W.6.691 x 4.986 Note this is for all the strawberry pieces not including the leaves or the tear drop shape for the ears. 
4 Leaves for paws W 3.006 x  H 0.345
Tear Shapes W 2.76 x H  0.979
Remember I said this was slightly larger on these sizes so you will need to size up a tiny bit

Hat from Leaves are falling for pumpkin Stem:
W 1.767 x H 1.774

 If I made a mistake is this please forgive me and leave me a note I will clear it all up tomorrow. God Bless Y'all Sharalyn

Box is from Winter Gazebo SVG Kit 
Bow is on the freebies page of the blog:freebies from SVG Cuts