Valley of Bones Beginnings

There's a brief explanation of how this all started on the About Us page, but for those interested in more of my story, here goes:

I was born and raised in Lakeland Florida. My parents took me to church when I was 3 days old and that's where my foundation of Jesus came from. I went to that same little church until I was 18. My parents still go there. I'm so thankful for them instilling those values and beliefs in me. I know there were times I didn't want to get out of bed and go, but they made me. I didn't appreciate it at the time but I do now. 

As far back as I can remember, I loved to color and draw. My mom bought me so many books about drawing and lettering along with crayons and markers of every kind. I took every art class possible throughout school. I knew I wanted to do something with my life that was creative but I didn't know for a while exactly what it was. 

My first encounters with Christian apparel was in the local Family Christian Store where they sold Kerusso merchandise. That was in the early 2000s. I definitely owned a few of their shirts. I found out they took design submissions and came up with one they absolutely loved. I still have the front page of their site printed out that had my design on it. I drew it with colored pencils because that's all I had. But I knew I was on to something. I ended up having 4 designs of mine printed through them. I'm still pretty proud of that. That was close to 20 years ago now, which doesn't even seem possible. 

Since then, I've made futile attempts at making my own apparel through the years. I didn't have the money, the knowledge, or the tools. But fast forward to 2022 and things were finally starting to fall into place. I had a couple ideas for the name swimming around in my head. Valley of Bones was one of them. I don't even remember the others anymore. One day when I was leaving work I had my radio on the local rock station. Without me touching anything, the station changed to the local Christian station just as Rattle was playing. I remember thinking God knew how to tell me what He wanted and that's what I went with. I shared the idea with my husband and brother and they both loved it. 

It's been a work in progress. I didn't know what style of designs I wanted to do. I had been part of the biker group at my church. I liked skateboarding. I liked sports. But you can't be all things to all people in business. So I had to find the passion that God put in my heart, something I have always been drawn to... graffiti. I know that's such a random thing, especially in the Christian environment. Graffiti by definition is defaming property. Just for the record, I am 100% against that. I just like the style, the creativity. I remember seeing tags on trains when I was growing up and being fascinated by the different styles of lettering. I haven't found too many Christian designs done in that style, so I knew I had something unique. 

Any ideas I come up with is just my feeble attempt at sharing what God has put in my heart. I hope I do it justice. I hope I make Him proud with my efforts. I know it's just a simple design on a simple shirt, but maybe, just maybe, I can share the love of God with someone. 

Thank you for reading this far and allowing my story to be shared with you. I do hope you'll follow along on here and on social media. I can't wait to see what God has in store.