Hello! I’m Rubyellen and I hope you stay and chat awhile…

I am very much in love (and sometimes not so much in love, depending the time of the month) with my husband Ben and we have four little girls, True, Brave, and Soul, and Glow (yes, those really are their names) who I absolutely adore (though they also drive me nuts on occasion). I love making things and this blog originally intended to just document our everyday crafting, but it has turned into so much more. At Cakies, I chat about crafts to parenting & everything else in between. Cakies is all about celebrating family, grace not karma, art, and living life creatively and intentionally.

My husband Ben is a registered dietitian, which contributes to our philosophy of healthy eating and the constantly exposing our girls to high nutrition foods (we do have a list of “sometimes” foods that we like to indulge in too). My oldest, True, is the shyest of the bunch, and our #2, Brave, loves Spider-Man and spends her days as a super hero in disguise. Soul, our #3, goes through numerous outfit changes a day, and our baby, Glow, copies everything she sees her older sisters do. My days are spent with this crazy bunch, and while it’s always chaos and you could probably hear lots of yelling if you stood outside our front door, I’m thankful for all of it.

I graduated with a degree in Child and Adolescent Development and continued on to receive my Multiple Subject Credential, which led to a brief stint teaching fourth grade at a local public school. After having our first child, I decided to stay home. With just having had a baby, I wanted to learn how to sew so I could make things for her and so I started taking sewing classes. This is also right around the time I discovered blogs. I was amazed by the blogging community and wanted to join in. Blogging has given me many wonderful opportunities such as contribute to magazines, other wonderful blogs, as well as create my own illustrations into a design app (read more about it here). There are so many other good things that have come from blogging and I can’t wait to share those achieved dreams and joys with you, and that you would continue to follow along!

My Story
I am a Christian and I often talk about my faith, struggles and relationship with God on my blog. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be giving you a real portrayal of myself. My parents became Christians when I was five years old and I was fortunate enough to be brought up in a Christian home and in a local biblically solid church. Though those things are nice and dandy, those things did not make me automatically Christian as I had to decide to trust and follow Jesus on my own despite what my parents’ beliefs are.

When I was in sixth grade, I vividly remember sitting on the floor of my mom and dad’s bedroom all by myself, thinking about a message I heard at a recent bible study, and realizing that I needed Christ to save me from my sin. Being a good person wasn’t going to cut it for heaven because no matter how hard I tried, I would always mess up. There is no such thing as being good enough. Christ is the sinless sacrifice who died in my place so that he could bring me to God. There is no other hope for forgiveness and being restored. In that instance, I cried out to God to open my eyes from my sin, forgive me, and turn my eyes and heart towards him. Since then, living out God’s word in my life hasn’t been easy. Living out the Christian life is a frequent examining of my heart and asking God for forgiveness and help in turning to Him. I am always in a constant battle to love God more than myself, my husband, my family, or the things in life I enjoy.

I cling to His promise: Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

I hope you enjoy visiting this space and that somehow through what we do, it would inspire you to love your family, crafting, life, and most importantly God, even more.Thank you for stopping by Cakies!

If you have a question, it may be answered here or if you just want to say hello, email Rubyellen at mycakies(at)gmail.com. I love hearing from readers and try to respond to as much as I can, but please understand that I am not able to get to every single one. I do read each one though and each one is just as appreciated!

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*photos by Kimberly Geneviève