Post by by Jerusalem Jackson Greer

Happy Spring Break friends!

If you are like us, Spring Break has suddenly snuck up on us, along with a long to-do list. So today I am going to take the easy way out and share a little bit from my new book A Homemade Year; The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting and Coming Together, with you. The first bit is from the preface, and the last bit is from the chapter on Holy Saturday- the Saturday before Easter. The book is due in stores in just one short week, and I could not be more excited to share a little sneak peek with each of you today.

In my mid-twenties, cut free from the tether of a school calendar year, I found that I was attracted to—craved, even—the rhythm, internal and external, that liturgy seemed to bring to those who leaned in and embraced it. Once I had my own children, like so many other mothers around the world, I thought long and hard about what sort of traditions I wanted our family to have. I love a great celebration. I love party decorations and special menus and taking the time to do things up right. I even love the anticipation. To me, the preparation is half the fun because it is often in the doing and preparing that the best memories are made. So I set out to find a way that would create traditions of faith for our family through the rhythm of the liturgical calendar, using fun, modern, colorful crafts and recipes. In our home I have found that even the most common tactile acts such as kneading bread dough, threading a needle, or gluing paper can be important spiritual practices, especially when paired with intentional conversations and repetition over many years. A Homemade Year is a book written out of this experience…and out of my experiences as a busy, working mother, all too often burning the candle on both ends, and looking for a third .

In a recent post, blogger Penny Carothers wrote, “I’ve always elevated the lives of others above my own spiritual aspirations.…This mistaken belief parallels my long-held view that spirituality has to look a certain way to be legit.” I loved reading those words, because I too have gone through seasons of thinking that legitimate spirituality only fit into one very tight fitting box. My prayer is that A Homemade Year is the kind of book that will free you from just that sort of mistaken belief, from that phantom one-size-fits-all box. Instead I hope that this book inspires you to seek and experience God in a different way at your own pace. This book is meant to act as a guide, to encourage, and to teach—but never to induce guilt, to depress, or to intimidate.

Sailboat Easter Baskets
I am always trying to create new crafts that my boys will enjoy making and playing with as well. I designed these boats with Easter in mind, but they have also played host to Lego and Star Wars characters on the occasional bathtub excursion. When we made these for Easter, we talked about all of Jesus’s friends—the disciples who had been fishermen. Although the Bible gives us some indication of what some of the disciples did on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday, not much is said about their actions on Saturday. I like to think that a few of them went fishing to sort things out. To sit, to pray, to hope, and to wait. I know that is what Sweet Man would have done.

Materials Needed:
Red plaid paper food baskets (you can get these at most restaurant supply stores or online)
Modeling clay (2-inch square)
Bamboo skewer
12 x 12-inch scrapbook paper
Scrapbook paper scraps
Tape
Glue stick
Scissors
Easter grass
Plastic eggs or fuzzy chicks

Directions:
Place your square of clay into your food basket, off to the left side, toward the edge. Press down until the clay is stuck well enough to what is now the sailboat floor. The clay will not adhere permanently.

Print the pattern provided at the Paraclete Website (http://www.paracletepress.com/a-homemade-year.html ) to make your sail. Fold a 12 x 12-inch sheet of paper in half and place pattern (cut out) on the fold. Cut triangle out. To make a second, smaller triangle for a layered effect, reduce the size of the pattern by 1/3 and print and repeat all other steps.

Next, secure your sail to your bamboo skewer. Lay the skewer on the inside of your sail in the center crease, fixing it in place with a small piece of tape.

Using the glue stick, trace the inside edges of your sail. Once all edges have a thick layer of glue, close your sail around your skewer and press flat, smoothing out any wrinkles. This makes a double layer of sail for strength.

Embellish your sail with extra bits of paper, stickers, glitter, ribbon, or other ephemeraFinally, stick the skewer into the clay and voilà! You have a sailboat.

Fill with Easter grass, candies, and Easter eggs or fuzzy chicks.

A Homemade Year is available from all major bookstores online and will be in Barnes and Noble stores nationwide.

For more spring and Easter inspired crafts visit me at http://jerusalemgreer.com and search “Easter” or “Crafting”

A Homemade Year:The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together
by Jerusalem Jackson Greer
©2013 by Jerusalem Jackson Greer,
images by Judea Jackson http://www.judeajackson.net/
Used by permission of Paraclete Press, www.paracletepress.com

Hello AWB friends, my name is Jerusalem Jackson Greer and I am so happy to be hanging out with y’all this month.

Here are a few things about me: I am crafter, a writer, a former pastor, blogger, nest-fluffer, liturgical groupie, speaker and farm-gal wannabe. My day job is being the “Book Room Lady” at eStem Public Charter School in downtown Little Rock. I am surrounded by books and kids (including my own) all day. Working at my boys school is the closest I will probably ever get to homeschooling. Me, my husband Nathan (who I refer to as Sweet Man on my blog) and our two boys, Wylie and Miles, live in a 1940s cottage in Park Hill with an ever-changing rotation of pets, including a hen house full of heritage chickens and an English Sheep Dog mutt named Maizy. As a family, we are attempting to live a slower version of modern life. Sometimes it goes well, other times not so much.

Because I tend to think in words and pictures I thought I would take you on a little visual tour of my life. But first, go get your favorite beverage, find a comfy seat and settle in. Sometimes I get wordy when I get excited.

This is my family-well some of them. My boys who are almost always in some sort of costume;  my parents in their twenties during my dad’s seminary years in Memphis – I get my love of overalls from him;  me and Sweet Man whose shoulder I lean on often and who is my biggest fan;  my Maw – who is my muse and whose belief in me propels me forward and finally me and my siblings when we lived in Alaska wearing our Hope Watermelon t-shirts that my grandparents sent us. I am the tall one with the frizzy hair.  These are the people I was born to and who were born to me. They are the ones who shape me and encourage me and love me and put up with me and tell me the truth.

I am realizing now that I should have made a collage of my friends because they are the family I have chosen. But honestly I don’t know that you would stick with me through a blog that long. Sweet Man jokes that I have a hundred best friends.  He might not be wrong. If you come to the AWB conference you will get to meet at least a dozen of them.

Here are some things I love. I am a wee bit obsessed with icons of the Virgin Mary. I collect paintings and chalk statues and I take pictures everywhere I go of her.   My family and I love to camp. Especially places where there is already some sort of rough structure, like this tent at Petite Jean, where I can camp cute with my vintage quilts and melamine picnic ware. A dream job would to be a paid camping blogger for State and National Parks.  I adore my Ariat men’s Rambler boots. I wear them constantly. I also like to Instagram them.  We have 6 chickens in our back yard and they are precious. Sweet Man is a musician and introduced me to Bluegrass and Southern Rock. For this I am eternally grateful.  I love fairs- county fairs, state fairs, and local festivals. I love the fried food, the animal barns and the blue ribbon competitions and the craft booths.

I have been blogging for 8 years this month. Growing my audience has been slow and steady as I have found my footing and my voice.  I have had to “re-boot” the blog twice and I am still not 100% sure why my readers like me, but I am grateful that they do.  I tend to blog about the following topics the most: Decorating our house, Crafting, inspiration out on the web (mostly on Pinterest these days!)  my desire to  slow down (and to sleep more,) what I am reading, other places I am writing, traveling – places I have been, places I want to go,  my faith, and food- cooking and eating.

Twelve years ago I took my first steps into the design and craft world when I began decorating friends homes for Christmas and appearing on Good Morning Arkansas as the “craft girl.”   Over the years I have had successes and failures.  None of them came easy or fast, as even the hard lessons were learned over time.  In a funny twist of fate (which is the only way things happen in my life) all of the really fun stuff, the “dream come true” stuff , has happened in the last few years. In the years after I officially closed my design and craft business.  Here are some of my favorite fun stuff:  Recently, P. Allen Smith came to our house to film a segment on urban farming. My boys are my favorite parts of this whole video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNePnp16fck&feature=youtu.be)  My friend Jeanetta and I occasionally dust off our talents and whip up some crafty and vintage items to sell at Craft Shows. We call our venture Bright Ridge Co-Op.  Parts of our home have been photographed for several magazines, including Vintage Style, Cottage Style and At Home in Arkansas.  I design positive posters that I sell online from time to time (http://jollygoode.bigcartel.com/) and which have been featured on some of my favorite blogs like Whatever and Farm Patch Flowergirl . But out of all of this, the one bit of creative work that I am most proud of is my new book, which is being released this month: A Homemade Year; The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting and Coming Together. (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-homemade-year-jerusalem-jackson-greer/1113830866)  The book is part narrative as I tell my story of faith, and part DIY/Inspiration. The entire book was shot by my sister Judea and styled by both of us. Everything you will see in the book was made by myself, Sweet Man, Jeanetta, Jemimah or my mother (the latter three helping me with the sewing) and the kids. Every meal we shot we ate, every person you will see I love. There are no models, no fake loaves of bread, no show homes.  When we weren’t shooting at my house, we went “on location” in the backyards, around kitchen tables, and on the screened porches of friends and family.

To say that this book- from the stories to the crafts to the recipes and the parties- is the result of love, tears dedicated hard work, and countless hours of smiling and waiting and helping from everyone around me would be just scratching the surface of the truth. I cannot wait to share A Homemade Year with the world, because I cannot wait to show the world what love looks like from where I sit:  Humbling, giving, generous, amazing, love.

So there you have it. All about me. I apologize if I talked your ear off. I tend to get excited about things like my family and the book. If you want to visit me at my place (http://jerusalemgreer.com)  I would love to have you!

Till next time, cheers and blessings- Jerusalem