the Stone and the Oak

I’ve mentioned in several posts that my seasons of difficult anxiety often have a root in control.

An important lesson I learned from the most recent anxiety season is that fully surrendering to Him is what pulls me out of the spinning, whirling quicksand of fear.

But in order to truly break the anxiety cycle, I have to be willing to give it all to Him—even the things I clench tightly in my fists, like my sense of security, for instance.

Once I identified the need for surrender, I decided to create reminders of it for my home, so that I could be re-directed to surrender with just a glance.

And thus this DIY was born. (Thus-this!)

The hymn “I Surrender All” must have been one that I sung in church growing up, because when I stumbled upon it on Etsy, the melody started in my mind right away. How perfect are these lyrics?

All to Jesus I surrender/ All to him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust him / In his presence daily live.

I surrender all/ I surrender all/ All to thee my blessed Savior,

I surrender all.

written by Judson W. Van DeVenter, 1896

I found a neat little circular frame with raw wood at Joann’s (80% off because the picture in the frame had a little smudge!) and I knew that I wanted it to encircle the lyrics.

To purchase and download the sheet music from Etsy, it was $2.00 from the shop ModestPrints. The hymn I chose is classified as HYMN-056, but they have some other great chocies!

You can find ModestPrints Etsy shop here

I then printed it at 16×20” dimensions on white paper at a local print shop for $5. You might be able to get it printed a little less at a FedEx Kinko’s, but I love my local print shop and enjoy supporting it.

The first step after gathering the materials was to cut out a circle a little bigger than what I needed so that I would not accidentally make it too small. I made sure my song title was exactly where I wanted it in respect to the frame before tracing the circle.

Next, it was time to pull out the ModPodge to cover the area where the paper would be pasted. When I was at JoAnn’s, I found Mod Podge Paper. Did you know they made MP just for paper?! Neither did I, friend. I assume regular ModPodge would work, but as I later found, this stuff smooths out every single ripple and wrinkle!

Next, I laid the cut-out paper on top of the Mod-Podged surface, and starting at the middle, pressed out any bubbles with a spatula. To get the paper deep into the frame creases, I flipped over the paintbrush and used it to press the paper.

The ModPodge jar says to wait two hours for your project to be fully dry. I was amazed at how flat it dried!

Then I took the X-acto knife and cut off the excess paper around the frame.

As you probably already know, ModPodge is an adhesive and a sealant. So I got it out again, and painted on one more coat of the MP.

Here is where the project seemed like it was taking a turn for the worse: as soon as I started to paint on the top-coat of MP, the paper started to pucker and wrinkle. I started to think— oh no! It’s blown!

But I let it dry the second two hours, and I don’t know what kind of fairy dust is in ModPodge-Paper, but it dried perfectly flat without one wrinkle!

Take a look at the finished product!

So all in all, it was a successful project, and not terribly expensive ($8 frame, $7 total for hymn download and print, and maybe $5 for the ModPodge-Paper with a JoAnn coupon). I used so little of the MP, so it will serve me for many projects to come.

This project can be done with a square or rectangle frame, as well. In fact, the trimming would probably be a lot easier.

So tell me! Do you like old hymns? What is your favorite hymn? If you did this project, what would go inside your frame? I can’t wait to hear!

with His love,

Adelaide