Becoming a Well Versed Family
As we raise our kids, what framework are we using to enable them to formulate a Christian world view? As their understanding of the world around them develops, where are they going for stable moral values and truth? Our culture today is changing rapidly and we need to be aware of the influences out there that are challenging our children. We need to be equipped to teach and train our children so they can develop a moral compass and build a framework of faith that will stand as they grow.
Hiding God’s word in your heart is a worthwhile practice. The bible is God’s word to man that reveals His character and His wisdom through truths that help us face every life circumstance.
God’s word is alive and active and gives us a connection to the heart of the creator of the universe.
Psalm 119:9,11 “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your word. I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You”
God’s word enables us to live above mediocrity. We can use God’s word to instruct our children in the teachable moments in the lives of our kids.
Here are some tools that we used when the girls were young to begin to introduce our girls to the blessings and benefits of bible memorization.
GT and the Halo Express
This is a series of songs that uses scripture as the actual words to the song so your kids learn passages of the bible while they sing the songs.
Abeka alphabet bible memory cards These are the alphabet bible cards that we used with our girls. You memorize one verse for each letter of the alphabet. I would make up a short sing song melody for each …
Brooklyn Owl Recap of the Week
In case you missed our First PASSION PERSPECTIVE featuring of Brooklyn Owl, here is a recap of the week!
Learn about Growing Weisser’s new Passion Perspective concept of featuring a guest that has a true enthusiasm for the work they are doing. Our first guest has been Annie Bruce, the creator of Brooklyn Owl. Discover our long time history of knowing Annie and a few of Annie’s favorite things!
Tuesday’s post revealed the journey of Brooklyn Owl – The passion, the long-time goals, and more!
Wednesday included more of the Passion Perspective Interview. Read about Annie’s heart and what has motivated her through the process of Brooklyn Owl. She shares about how her faith has played such a big role and gives some great life wisdom!
Read some amazing Reviews about the Brooklyn Owl products from Thursday’s post, showing more of the variety and creativity of each item!
AND THE WINNER IS…
Melissa Rae McCary!!
Congratulations on winning our Brooklyn Owl Giveaway! Check your inbox today for your exclusive Brooklyn Owl Etsy Shop Coupon Code!
For all of our other Growing Weisser Followers, please continue to support Annie Bruce and Brooklyn Owl!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/brooklynowl
Print out some Brooklyn Owl original coloring pages!
Fun Free Coloring Pages by Brooklyn Owl
Step 1: Download and Print
Rainbow Owl = http://BrooklynOwl.com/
Big Owl = http://BrooklynOwl.com/
Step 2: Have Fun Coloring
Step 3: Take Picture of you and your creation
Step 4: Send image to BrooklynOwl@gmail.com
or tag Brooklyn Owl on Facebook
We hope you have enjoyed our first Passion Perspective week! We will continue this new idea once a month, sharing a new guest each time! We are really excited to support and encourage our guest’s passion through Growing Weisser!…
Read MoreBrooklyn Owl Products & Reviews
Annie has quite the successful Brooklyn Owl business! She has made almost 1,000 sales on Etsy, and as a result, has obtained a 5 STAR Review from her customers! In most business, there are bound to be a few negative comments here or there regardless of how great the product it. However, going through the 216 customer feedback reviews for Brooklyn Owl, I did not read one negative comment! I believe that is a great testimony of the hard work put into each product and the quality of each handmade item, the reliability and precision of the artist, and an all around amazing company!
Brooklyn Owl products are also sold at 9 different retailers around New York. Annie tries to get involved with many local events, such local flea markets and street sales, to share Brooklyn Owl with as many people as possible! Check out the Brooklyn Owl Facebook Page to get more updates on these events!
CUSTOM LISTING FOR LAILA: “I cannot say enough good things about Annie and Brooklyn Owl. She was very helpful and willing to work with me on the order. She responded to my messages quickly and was extremely friendly. I was shocked at how quickly she made my order and got it shipped to me. It was packaged so carefully and came with adorable extra coloring sheets! One of the best online purchase experiences I’ve ever had. Thank you so much, Annie! 
CUSTOM LISTING FOR ASHELY: “Amazing! Annie went out of her way to create ears my daughter wanted to go along with the unicorn horn. The complete set is so perfect! Very well made and super cute! Shipped & arrived very promptly, too.”
YOU CHOOSE COLOR UNICORN HORN or NARWAL TUSK HAIRCLIP: “Great seller. I ordered the white unicorn horn with gold thread. …
Read MorePassion Perspective Interview
Part 3 of a 5 part series featuring Annie Bruce owner of “Brooklyn Owl”
We have organized Day 3 of our “Passion Perspective” to include an interview format that allows you to see into the heart of our guests. You will feel their passion and begin to understand what motivates them and what draws people to their products and why we feel privileged to be sharing their heart and passion with you.
Here are Annie Bruce’s responses to her interview about Brooklyn Owl:
How has your faith played a part of this journey?
- Challenges-expected and unexpected: “My faith has brought me through the darkest moments of running my business, and allowed me to step back and gain perspective on the fact that it isn’t the end of the world if something is late, or an unexpected thing goes wrong. God is still the most important thing and that doesn’t depend on how things are going.”
- Blessing-expected and unexpected: “My whole business is an exercise in faith because it never made sense, on paper, to do it at all. But I prayed hard about it and felt that it was something I needed to do. I see kids wearing my stuff when I walk around the city sometimes and it is a blessing to feel that something I made is a part of making someone happy or more confident. The kids in my neighborhood call me “the unicorn lady” because they see me at the craft fairs or walking around in one of the horns I make, which reminds me that, good or bad, I am setting an example for little eyes every day, and I want so badly to set a good one. It is little things like that that bless me and make me want to do this forever.”
About Brooklyn Owl
THE JOURNEY OF BROOKLYN OWL…
Annie’s original passion was to create a business that could bring in income while she stayed home with her young daughter.
In order to make her dream a reality, she took these steps.
Annie always loved working with felt and so she started making things out of felt. “Things I saw in books, or things I imagined. The early hair clips and toys were pretty primitive. But I got better. After a while I had made some stuff that was my own and that I wanted to share with people. So I started to produce my clips in quantities to sell”. In 2010, after hours of brainstorming and creating wearable felt pieces, Annie opened up her Etsy shop with her hair clip designs and customizable headbands, and her business has grown from there.”
“Brooklyn Owl is special because it is its own universe, with its own color palette and its own group of animals that exist there. Everything is curated and designed to fit in with the “Brooklyn Owl style”. It isn’t just a hair clip, it is a world of products that have been designed for people that love color and want to have more fun with their fashion.”
Digging deeper into the passion of Brooklyn Owl…
- What are your long-term goals and dreams? “My goal is to make Brooklyn Owl as big and as great as it can be. My dream is to add color to the lives of people all over the world, and to produce things that produce smiles.”
- How has your product line changed and expanded? “I offer a lot more than the Brooklyn Owl hairclip I started with! I have 3 different owl designs in a wide variety of colors, mermaid hairclips, garlands, cake toppers, bowties, pins, jewelry, ornaments,
Passion Perspective
Growing Weisser is going to start a new “tradition” called “Passion Perspective”. “Passion Perspective” will be a unique way to share a glimpse into the lives of some intriguing people who are pursuing their passions. Throughout the next year we will be devoting one week each month to feature a guest that has a true enthusiasm for the work they are doing. Our “Passion Perspective” week will include exclusive interviews to introduce you to many of our favorite friends who are on a journey of taking their passions and turning them into small businesses. We will share the steps they took, the challenges they faced, and the blessings that have come as well as their long term goals and dreams for the future. We will have awesome giveaways of products provided by each guest. Check back tomorrow for details about entering the giveaway.
Our first blog Guest is Annie Bruce, owner of the “Brooklyn Owl”. Annie was born and raised in Lemoore, CA in a Christian family with 2 brothers and wonderful parents. She has always been a sporty girl and set a few records in college. Her mom, Sue, was her best friend. Sue suffered from leukemia for much of Annie’s childhood, which made the moments they shared together as mother and daughter sacred and special to Annie. Sue went to heaven right before Annie graduated from college, and Annie was sad to see her go, but grateful for the time they had together to make lasting memories. Annie met a nice boy and after a few delightful years of dating they got married and moved to New York City. They lived in Manhattan for their first year of marriage, and then moved to Brooklyn. In October of 2008 Annie delivered a baby girl who they named Bee! …
Read MorePizza Sauce with Pizzaz
We love making homemade pizza in our family. Pizza has always been our go to Friday night dinner. So when we were growing up we started a tradition of having Friday night-Weisser Pizza night. The last time my mom was visiting we decided to try a new recipe for homemade pizza sauce with pizzaz. We started with a recipe from Kitchen Treaty and we changed it up a bit and made it our own. It was fantastic.
Ingredients
1 Tablespoon olive oil
4 cloves garlic smashed
2 cans (14.5 oz) petite diced tomatoes
4-6 leaves fresh basil chopped fine or 1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Saute garlic in olive oil, in a sauce pan. Add basil and oregano and stir for 1 minute. Add canned tomatoes, salt, pepper, sugar and red pepper flakes. Stir until combined. Bring to a boil over medium heat, turn to low and simmer for 60 minutes. Sauce should thicken up. We like chunky pizza sauce but if you want it smooth, pour into blender and blend until smooth. Store in a mason jar. Lasts at least 1-2 weeks in refrigerator, but we used it up the day we made it on two large pizzas.
This really makes the homemade pizza even better that ever!
To see another pizza sauce recipe that we love, check out Bethany’s past post “Food for Mommy’s Day” from Mother’s Day last year.
…
One in Spirit and Purpose
I have always loved the book of the Bible, Philippians. But lately, I have been on an even bigger Philippians kick trying to read and absorb the encouragement that Paul shares in this book. I don’t want to just read it, I want to live it.
Look at this verse:
Philippians 2:1-4 “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
The chapter starts out right where we all need to begin. We need to be one with Christ, unified in our heart, our soul, our mind… in every part of who we are. Christ is the foundation, the cornerstone, the rock, the EVERYTHING. So in our unity with him, we have encouragement, purpose, and inspiration. Next it moves to what God is all about. His love. His love is powerful, strong, and passionate. It brings comfort through the security in being loved by our Father. When we share in the love of the Lord, we share in the experience. We share in the outpouring of tenderness and compassion through the bearing of the fruit of the Spirit. Through life with Christ, our joy becomes complete. We live for a greater purpose than just ourselves. The joy we have in that goes so far beyond the “happiness” of the world. So in experiencing the pure joy we gain a different perspective about the purpose of life. Christ lives …
Read MoreCouples Devotional
At the beginning of this year, my husband and I decided to start a daily devotional together. It was a gift from our close family friends and marriage counselors and mentors (Thank you Dan and Silvia!! :D) and we decided it was time to put it to good use! I loved the idea of taking specific time to do a devotional together, but I never thought it would do as much good as it has! Not only has it given us an opportunity for undistracted quality time together (even if it is only 5 or 10 minutes), but it has brought up some great topics of discussion that we probably would not have talked about in daily conversation! It has also given me the chance to praise and thank my husband, think about how he has blessed me throughout our marriage, and how much I appreciate the things he does for me.
The One Year Devotions for Couples was written by David and Teresa Ferguson. Throughout this devotional, many themes are covered such as Acceptance, Attention, Approval, Confession, Forgiveness, Grace, Prayer, Sympathy, and Trust. Each day includes a Bible verse, a devotional that illustrates a personal experience from the Fergusons’ life, a prayer, and a discussion question.
They said, “We believe that marriage is one of the most exhilarating relationships God has created. But sometimes marriage can be exhausting because it takes work to keep a marriage alive and flourishing. However, we can tell you- from personal experience and from our observations of others- that it’s well worth the effort it takes to deepen the intimacy of marriage.”
I have really enjoyed this particular devotional because it has reminded me that everyone is broken and everyone struggles in a marriage, not just us. David and Teresa Ferguson are very vulnerable …
Read MoreA Spectacular Sewing Kit Solution
Have you ever had those simple sewing or mending projects that would only take a few minutes to complete if your supplies were right on hand and easy to access? Well, the Spectacular Sewing Kit is an easy organizational solution to a common problem. I have always had a large sewing basket and just recently added a sewing supply tote to my attempts to keep my sewing and mending supplies arranged in an easy grab and go container. But I still wanted something smaller with scissors, thread, pins and needles that I could keep in the kitchen or near my chair in the living room. I had resorted to a ziplock bag filled with essentials. But this morning I saw a great idea on Pinterest and decided to make one for myself. Thus, my Spectacular Sewing Kit Solution!!!
Supplies needed:
1 Quart Mason jar
1 scrap of cotton fabric 8×8 inches
1 piece of fiber fill batting 8×8 inches
1 hot glue gun
small scissors
1 or 2 spools of thread
pack of sewing needles
needle threader
safety pins
straight pins
measuring tape
seam ripper
any other sewing or mending supplies that you use regularly
Take the flat round seal piece of your mason jar and plug in your glue gun. When the glue gun is ready, place a generous amount of hot glue on the top of your mason jar seal. Fold your piece of batting in quarters and scrunch it on top of the glue on your flat round seal. Hold in place until secure.
Take scrap of cotton fabric and cut out a circle about 2 inches wider than the top.
Place the cotton fabric with wrong side on top of batting and stretch over the batting and glue in place on the back of the mason …