fbpx Top

Renee Swope

Encouraging and equipping moms to parent with God's grace and confidence.

Read An Excerpt: Chapter 1 & 2

Everyday Confetti: How To #LetGodLove {others} Through Us

Screen Shot 2014-02-21 at 2.27.51 PM


Every year my calendar gets filled with busy days, holidays, birthdays and lots of ordinary days in-between! And every January, I tell myself… “I want this year to be different. I want us to make more memories, and make a difference together, as a family. Joshua and Andrew are already sixteen and nineteen. I’ve got to get more intentional before they move out!”

Do you ever have conversations like that with yourself, or is it just me?

I have such great intentions of getting more organized and creative, but then, every month it seems my intentions get trumped by the busyness of life! Well, I found us some help! My friends Karen Ehman and Glynnis Whitwer have done the creative planning, organizing and simplifying for us in their new go-to guide, Everyday Confetti! 

Today Karen stopped by to be part of my #LetGodLoveYou series! She’s giving us glimpse of the goodness inside Everyday Confetti and share “A Few Simple Ways To Sprinkle God’s LOVE”! PLUS I’ve got a copy of the book to giveaway too!

Simple Ways To Sprinkle God’s LOVE

First, create small tags with Bible verses about God’s love on them. Here are a few to use:

  • See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1
  • And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. 1 John 4:16a
  • We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

Attach a tag to any of these ideas to sprinkle God’s love on those around you:

    • Purchase coffee house gift cards and attached a tag to each. Go to a hospital waiting room and hand them out to folks who look like they could use a good cup of coffee.
    • Take your kids to the grocery store and offer to carry out the groceries for elderly people you see. Hand them a note of kindness with a tag attached.
    • Purchase gift cards for local restaurants that deliver and attach tags to them. Take a few to your pastor or church secretary so they can order lunch to be brought in on busy days.
    • Place a candy bar or homemade treat with a tag in your mailbox for the mail carrier.
    • Have young children {or grandchildren} color pictures or paint some adding glitter and stickers. Write one of the verses above on the picture. Then, take them to the local nursing home and hand them out.
    • If you live in an area with lots of snow on the ground, make snowmen outside of the windows of a nursing home or hospital children’s ward. {Be sure to get permission first}
    • Hand a tag to the worker at the drive-through window and pay for the person’s order behind you. Ask the worker to give the tag to the person with their food.
    • Create a fruit or vegetable tray and attach a tag and a bow on top. Take it to the local police or fire station thanking them for their hard work!
    • Take a plate of homemade goodies to your child’s teacher’s lounge at school with a tag attached.
    • Leave a note of encouragement and a verse on Facebook for a friend you haven’t seen in a while.


 9780800722012_largeEnter to WIN!
From the back cover~ Got a calendar packed with reasons to celebrate but a brain that lacks ideas? Special people you want to love on but limited time to do it? Relax. We’ve got you covered! Everyday Confetti is your go-to guide to making holidays, birthdays, special events, and even the everyday special. Inside you’ll find more than two hundred ways to make memories with your family, including easy recipes, fun activities, and inexpensive decorating ideas–all simple, doable, and stress-free.

Leave a comment to enter to win! Simply share why you’d like a copy of Everyday Confetti, or share a favorite celebration idea you have.Winners will be announced next week. If you’re reading this via email, click here to go to my blog and ENTER TO WIN!

After you ENTER TO WIN, hop over to the oh-so-fun Everyday Confetti website where you’ll find lots of FREE ideas to sprinkle “special” on every day! 

Comments

  1. I am the same way….many good intentions that never see the light of day.
    This would be so helpful for me.

  2. I feel like I am the Queen of good intentions! I am always buying cards that somehow don’t ever seem to get mailed. I would love to read this book, I hope it would help me get organized!

  3. Love to surprise others when they least expect it! Thank you for providing this give-a-way… 🙂

  5. What a wonderful title “Everyday Confetti”! A title and book that my Dear Departed Mom would have loved and appreciated. She was a lady that knew how to spin a little magic for the Holidays. She loved everyone of them and passed her Joy in Celebration on to me as such a Blessed Gift. I have learned over the years too to make a little magic for those that I love, especially my now deceased Daughter, and my Son, but hopefully one day for grandchildren. As a Psychiatric Nurse working with abused and battered kids and teens, and with Alzheimer’s and Dementia Patients, as well as a Trauma – Critical Nurse I am always looking for fresh and new ideas to bring a bit of Joy into my Patients lives, their families lives, and too to the lives of my staff. I think this book would be a helpful solution for when my creative energies are a little bit depleted.

  7. I love to celebrate, but don’t always have the time or money to do what I’d like. I would love to hear how I can keep it simple AND make it special!

  8. In a world where we spend more on screen time than actual face time, this book would be great to help get back to personal relationships. This book could not come at a better time. With raising four small children this book would be dog tailed, highlighted, and carry many post-it notes. Thanks for sharing your ideas on stress free celebration! Sprinkle on!

  9. Hi! Looks so interesting. Would love to find new ways to dote on the people around me (:
    And that’s one of my favourite verse you’ve got there. “We love because he first loved us.”

  10. This sounds like a book I could really use a lot! I am so not organized or creative. I have such good intentions to make great memories for my husband and son but I seem to let getting overwhelmed become my norm and than I feel badly about my lack of skills and not having made a huge fuss and celebration for my guys. I would love to surprise them with a creative touch for a change!

  11. Nothing is more priceless than memories and especially of our lived ones! So to be able to find new, creative ways to make their days special,would simply brighten my day and add to my collection of memories!! I would love to win a copy if your book so that I can dive into it for new creations for 2014 for my five precious grandchildren….there is nothing more special….and even more to he able to have God first in those creations!!! Thank you for the opportunity…. Blessings!!!!

  13. I LOVE these ideas – so simply yet able to leave quite an impact on someone (or at least it would for me). I just love this idea and enjoy the encouragement from you ladies!

  14. I too want to be organized and not just go Thur the motions of life I want to live it and give and share love and God

  17. Thank you for sharing this. I so desperately need ideas and ways to celebrate and encourage others. We have a blended family of 8 children, 4 of whom are still at home. The four children at home are 15, 13, 10 and 7. We also have 1 grandBaby. My husband works long hours and is out of town a lot, which means the everyday chorus, upkeep and running kids places falls on me. There never seems to be enough time and I feel guilty a lot that I’m not doing enough to build special memories for the kids. Time is flying by so fast and before we know it all our children will be out on their own. This book sounds like it would give me real practical ways to create meaningful times together and ways to honor and celebrate others. Thank you so much. This is exactly what we busy moms need. God Bless!

  19. I think this is an excellent idea for a book! I am currently leading a women’s Bible Study and we have been talking about how we can share love, hope, encouragement, and joy with others…thinking of ways to bless people we know and people we do not know personally ,but could use a good dose of kindness to show God’s love. We are His hands here on Earth.

    I would be thrilled to receive a book and pass it along to the ladies in my study.

    Many blessings,
    Vivian

  20. I especially appreciated the ideas for the postal worker, firefighters/police officers – what a great way to say thanks! I made crockpot candy before Christmas & gave goodie bags to the neighbors & postman. I pick up small hand creams & lip balms, put them in ‘seasonal’ gift bags & pass them out randomly to people at our church – you should see the way they light up! I’d love to read the book & get more ideas on how to bless others! Thanks much!

  23. I am looking for creative ways to serve others and be more Christlike in the process. I also want to teach my son to love others as God loves us everyday 🙂

  25. I REALLY NEED THIS BOOK BECAUSE I ALWAYS WANT TO MAKE SPECIAL DAYS SPECIAL BUT I JUST CAN NEVER THINK OF HOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  26. What a great idea. I need ideas. My husband and I have been in ministry for 40 years this coming June. I need new ideas for new ways of reaching out to people. I’m trying to keep up with technology and young people, but feel like I’m going against a rapid river of information and new ideas. I need help. I don’t want to be stuck in the past.

  27. I would love to win this book because I like you have a lot of dates to remember. I also work for a preschool and you never want to forget their birthday or any special day for the family. I sure hope I win one some of these ideas were really great I think I was going to try them

  28. When you have the privilege to bless someone , even in small ways, it be becomes a “life. changer ” you never think the same way again. I love, love what I have seen of your book!
    Thank you for this book! It will bless so many people!

  33. Looks like this book is filled with some fabulous ways to share God’s love with others. I have Karen’s book, “A Life that Says Welcome” and it was fabulous! I imagine this one is packed with wonderful ideas too!

  34. This is a wonderful, thought way to bring joy to others! I am always trying to think of little things like this to do and all to often come up blank. What a awesome resource to have!

  35. My daughters are 20 and 23. One is married and the other one has moved out also. My empty nest reactions are overwhelming to them. I need just simple things I can do to let them know I am thinking of them and love them. Maybe this would put salve on this momma’s heart!

  36. I love this!! I enjoy showing God’s love to others and would love this book to get creative ideas! We moved recently and we are meeting many new people that we could sprinkle God’s love on. 🙂

  38. I love this idea. Although we have done things like this before, we need to be more intentional. This book would be a great resource.

  39. This book sounds like it would have some neat ideas to add variety to life. It seems like fun ideas to spread with others. I always (if I even think of them) think of something that would be fun way after the time I need it. I am very plain, boring so this sounds like something that would be different for me.

  40. I would like to start new traditions with my family. My husband and I were blessed with our last child in 2011 ( I was 41 and he was 53). Our other children were both in their late teens and grown. This has been a new beginning for the three of us. Besides having my daughter, we relocated from North Carolina to a small ranching community in Edna, Texas.
    Because this is a new chapter in our lives, this is my chance to fulfill the purpose that God has for me, which is to raise my child to know Him (not only about Him). I have read A Confident Heart as an online bible study with Proverbs 31 Ministry with Melissa Taylor and Lyra TerKeurst. I cannot emphasii how your book with the bible study has changed my view on God, my family, and myself. Your book Everyday Confetti will be a great addition to mine and my family’s daily walk with the Lord.

  41. What an awesome way to sprinkle God’s love to others, thank you for sharing. I would love to win your book to spread God’s love to others in creative ways, to people all around me, sorta like secrect pals at work and a opportunity to give to the comunity
    Thanks so much for the opportunity to win. 🙂 God Bless

  43. I must admit, this is just up my alley! I love to do things like this, my creative side of me comes out. Right now, I am decorating jars…I cannot believe it. I have put ribbons around them and a cross on the front, then I used some of your tags with a Bible verse on them. I filled them with different things…like colored tacks, clips and little sticky notes, even a tiny stapler and staples. Also, I used handkerchiefs inside my jars to bring out the color, it matched my ribbons. I use small soaps, shampoo, finger nail file, etc in another jar.
    Just had fun with it.
    Another time I decorated with min-canvas on stands and used Bible verses which were on stickers that were clear. I have also decorated with keys…old and new. I went to the store to get there throw away keys to put on the tables. Used ribbon around the old keys. Just some of the ideas I came up with.
    I have paid for a Veteran’s lunch, handed out bottles of water to the homeless, given out clothes to the needy, given little children money, and helped the pregnancy center. This year I am helping support children in OKC who need a free lunch. Just love to do things that help others. I don’t have a lot of money so I try to get other ladies to help me and we try to do something really special at least once a year at our annual church brunch.

  44. I have picked 8 women this year to randomly bless throughout the year. I have already done one thing and the next project is to send them 4 packets of seeds to plant some flowers that will grow in their area. I plan on sending out in the coming week to enable them to have a chance to get the seeds to germinate. It would be helpful to find more ideas from your book to be able to celebrate these women. I include a scripture before sending something to them. Usually before I send to them, I pray over each person’s name and unless I get a specific scripture, I use the same one for each. I don’t know if the next project will include all 8 or one individual or just a few as I wait on the Lord for direction. It is exciting to see how God directs my path. So far, nothing has been too costly and that is what I like best since I am on a strict budget and this has to come from my grocery budget – which God provides for as well.

  45. I have five children ages 24, 16, 14, 13, 12 and 3 grandchildren ages 3 and twins that are 1. I work as a 911 dispatch supervisor and I have crazy work schedules. I too want to instill in my children and grandchildren a selfless love for others. I would love to utilize ideas in this book to help me accomplish that goal.

  50. I love this!!! I would love to win a copy to learn how I can show God’s love to others in practical ways — with my kids!! 🙂