MonaLeafa Designs

A shared prayer for all who feel tested and torn…

Dear God,

Thank You for seasons of divine testing. Thank You for never hesitating to test us when You are ready for us to step into a new chapter of life. Most importantly, Thank You for allowing every test offered to be an open book test, with You as our teacher, revealing truth of what needs improvement or removal.

We pray that You will listen to all our asks through these tests and hear us through our times of challenge. We ask that You will grant us Your peace, Your grace and Your strength. May it rain down over us especially in times of weakness or vulnerability, easing our sensitive hearts and our minds as we might sometimes feel like these tests are more than we can bear. Help us to understand Your purpose.

Holy Spirit, we ask that You would draw near to us, lead us, guide us and shield us in all truth, allowing us to witness Your works and Your light as You reveal why these tests are necessary for our continued lifetime.

We pray You silence the voice of the enemy who has been trying to convince us that this test is going to break us. It’s not. In Your name, we ask that You remove all that is not of You, or part of Your plan for us. No matter what challenges we face, may we hear Your words, and understand that any test was “not” designed to break us, but only to assist in washing away any past flesh in order to become a new being moving forward, strengthening our souls preparing us for a place in heaven.

Holy Spirit, help us to stay in understanding of every test, for on the other side we will see and live in your reward.

Please bless us Lord in every way that even our own words can’t describe. In Jesus’ name, amen.

It’s been an adventure and a true blessing to say the least from start to finish. Blessing to have had the opportunity to create what I believe turned out to be a beautiful, keepsake art piece for the Vera family. 🌳💍

It was a tough task planning and cutting out sections of the wood canvas, however, after building and planning placement, it flowed perfectly together. With the wedding bouquet/ arrangement, I melded the petals and leafs forming them into a tree of life form, in order to represent the newly shared life/union.

Other materials incorporated were their champagne bottle as the tree trunk, which is the actual bottle they shared together at their wedding celebration, the bride’s veil that I lined the wood canvas and I also decided to pull through certain areas I had cut out to help with the balance and also encapsulate where the bottle sat inside the canvas as well as the small wedding vase.

More items incorporated were the wedding handkerchief, wedding invitation, wedding cake alebrijes, wedding sparklers, wedding garter and printed and included their wedding vows/quotes to each other on the canvas — leaving all items intricately secured and formed into one memorable art piece.

The framing is a custom, wood shadow box frame with velvet matting to help enhance the color scheme they had at their wedding.

Custom framing done by House of Frames located in Harlingen, TX.

All in all, this family gave me free reign to use my creative skills which I’m grateful for, however, through the process I remained committed to having full transparency for the design, from the sketched idea to start, cost for materials, time it would take, and even the experienced hiccups that occurred causing delay throughout.

I did my best to not only capture their wedding memories, but also the colors and theme as well.

I am so glad they fell in love with their art and that it is now finally a forever art piece for their home❤️