Scripture Writing Set up for the Week

I have been following a daily scripture writing program for four years now, the more I do this the more I love it! It is one small process that brings me closer to the Lord and the best way to start my day.  I have a dedicated space for all this, which is important to me, and I tend to be on the Artsy side of it- which I love- but the real important  thing is the meditation, study and refreshing of the Word. Some people absolutely  cringe when  they see this type of journaling and that is okay, you be creation the Lord made you to be! What is important is the time in the Word and at the masters feet.

As I normally do things here, the completed set up and then the process:

I thought about doing a black and white layout this week, and then the paint brush stamp caught my eye, and the flowers took a leap from a shelf and landed on the page.  It will probably end up as busy as the pages normally are by Sunday!

I found a roll of this cool duct tape and used it for borders. Applied this paint brush stamp.

Added flowers

Added color with alcohol markers. I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

Added a little color and picked out pens

And then added the scripture writing for the day.

This only takes me about 10 miniutes to do the set up.  I linger over the writing and studying the verse. I don't rush it, it is part of my morning (and evening) devotion time.

I have a specific bible for this, and add thoughts and study notes with the days' date. 

Here are several of my past week's pages"

At one time I fretted over  the asthetic of these pages and I realized that fretting was the dumbest thing ever. This is for me and it is a form of worship, and that pleases the Lord! That is all I need  to consider. It is funny how we allow criticism to have traction in our thinking " your writing is terrible" who cares? " It is too busy, it gives me a headache" "Your spelling is awful" Ya, it is but, as an adult with dyslexia, I am so thankful, I can write out a thought, with out having to rewrite it 20 times. Those chains are gone. When Jesus said " The  Son will set you free" he meant in part, that he gives you grace and liberty to be who he created you to be. And that person will be free from sin that so easily besets us! 

If you struggle with voices from your past trash talking you, ask the lord to help you be free from them- he will! He wants us to live and move and have our being in him, totally free of that garbage.

I hope you give scripture writing  a try in your morning devotion, how you do it doesn't matter, it is the time spent with the Lord, and his healing in your soul that counts!

Have a wonderful  day and thanks for Stopping by.

Ginny M.

Whom Have I in Heaven but You? Journaling Ps73

Today's post is a very personal part of the testimony of my life and a part of the Open Journey journaling kit. I found the writings of Ingrid Blixt to be especially important and full of blessings. We do not share the same organized denomination of faith, but we do share a passion for Jesus. I find her writings to be a deep dive into the refreshing pools of mercy. Today's post features Psalm 73: 21-26. Those verses were my life in the summer of 1980. Verse 25+26 was the first verses I memorized. I have prayed them many, many times. Every time, they brought me to the place of peace and the Lord's touch on my soul. The image is graphic, but if it weren't for His death,  burial, and resurrection, I would still be in that desert place without hope.

 I would be lost, without hope and without salvation.  

There was a price, and he willingly paid it in full for me. He has never left me or forsaken me. He has given me a beautiful life, a loving, kind husband, children, grandchildren, best friends, a church family, everything I hoped for, and a glorious eternal future. 

 He calls all of us, but not everyone will choose Him. If you haven't, I hope you will. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Don't wait; we never have a promise of tomorrow.

Thank you for spending a few minutes here; enjoy your weekend. 

Resources links:

Open Journey Open Journey

Journaling the Names of Jesus, A Branch Bearing Fruit. Isaiah 11:1

I am in the Old Testament today, from Isaiah 11:1, a title and beautiful messianic prophecy of Jesus the One who fulfills all prophecy. I have a couple of process tips that might be helpful while creating with digital. First, the page:

For this page, I used my huge Illustrating Bible

This is one of my favorites. I am hoping they come out with a KJV version. The paper used is a wonderfully smooth, slightly warm white. It takes paint and markers beautifully, and glue never makes it rumple. For today's page, I used Reflections Dove White to print my Leibschen Blom digital on 65#, almost a perfect match color-wise and close weight-wise.

 

A little hard to tell from this shadowy photo.

This digital came in a European A4 size, just a little larger than the US standard letter size of 8×11.  To compensate  for the size difference, when you are ready to print, you can go into your printer preferences 

In the page box click A4, and then in the next box click on letter size. Your computer/printer will resize for you and your image will printout correctly. 

Another factor is paper type and saturation. 

For this image, I clicked on cardstock and high quality and got the opposite result. The printout was very faded, and the colors were slightly off. 

In this image, I used plain paper and high-quality printing.

And it came out perfect. Every printer is different, and you really have to experiment with both of these types of settings until you have figured out how you will get your best prints. I use a Canon G6270 printer, and I have great results. This is one of the refillable tank models and ranges under $200.00. I print a ton, and my ink expenses are under $100.00 a year. This is a far cry from the days when I used a cartridge ink system and would refill the cartridges with bulk ink and hypodermic needles

I created what I hope looked liked a old dried up tree trunk to add the fussy cut branches, I took a few miniutes for placement and started glueing. 

I really enjoyed working with this digital, these are some of my favorite colors and I really wanted to do this beautiful passage justice!

I cut the title into tiles, colored and glued.  Highlighted the passage.

I still have this beautiful page and flowers to work with. 

I hope this little tutorial was helpful. I have my resource links below. 

Have a wonderful day, and bring Jesus with you wherever you go! 

Ginny M

Resource Links: 

Liebshen Blom digital art

For your Inky worship

Journaling On The Way:

Facebook Group

Word Art Wednesday Challenge

Card Making Challenge

Christian Card Makers 

Card making, Journaling

 

Praying the Names of God

 Along with art journaling the names or titles of God, I  am taking a deeper look and praying the names of God in my life. I purchased this book a couple weeks ago to go with my art journaling. 

I am loving it, it is concise, well written and in a very organized format.  

I take this into my devotion time. One name a week is giving me plenty of time to read, write and pray these names.  

The binding makes this book very easy to write in . Each name has an introductory page,

A study page, and then a worksheet.  The author then challenges us to write a prayer using this name. And that is very exciting. Really the whole purpose of all of the journaling art or otherwise is to draw closer to the lord and bring his word deeper into our souls. In this crazy day we live in, we need all the help we can get to do that.

In the back there are very nice printed tear-apart cards, 

Since the name was Elohim for the first entry, and the verse of study were in Genesis 1

I added the name under Genesis and set the name card on a hinge in my bible. I am using  my "prayer" bible for this and adding this to my scriptural praying- it is so exciting!

I will definitely bring this to our Lifepoint women's group. We started prayer bible 2 years ago, I think this will be a wonderful  spiritual asset to add to our praying and study.

It is so exciting to still have so many resources and experiences in our walk of faith, I have been walking with the lord for 45 years, and the older I get the more I understand that truly His mercies are new every morning! Every day I pray, Lord lead me, keep me,  draw me closer to you!

And because HE is FAITHFUL, he does! 

Thank you for stopping by and I hope your day is full of blessing! 

Ginny M.

WOYWW 824/44 Blog Tour

 Good Morning! After a long absence from this fun blog hop, I checked Julia's blog last week and discovered that after 15 years, she passed the baton to Sarah! Seeing old friends' names and blogs really warms the heart. So thank you to both Julia and Sarah!

This morning, my work desk belies the volcanic mess it has been for the last week. Big and little projects have sent paper bits and pieces over my entire craft room, let alone my desktop. So here it is, thanks to a big tidy at 2am:

Just getting ready for my morning devotion time and study.

last night:

If you are new to WOYWW, Whats on Your Work Desk - it is a world wide blog hop of                  "where she creates".

Just a snippet of creative chaos or calm- Just for fun. 

you can go here To Sarah's Blog and see more.

Journaling the Names of Jesus, Lion Of Judah, Rev. 5:5

     Bible Journaling is something I really enjoy for many different reasons.  Before I start with paper and ink, I spend time reading the word, finding more about the subject, and just letting my mind go to the time and place of the passage of scripture. I generally do this after my devotion in the morning.  I will do the page after work or after dinner if it is a work day. I don't rush it; I let it water my soul.            

      Today, the subject was Jesus the Lion of Judah. It made me think of the Lord's power and majesty, of the great temple of Solomon, and of God's grandeur and richness. I will show you my finished page, and if you are interested, the process and resource links will follow. 

Today's page was almost a disaster. I tried something different, and it didn't work.

As I usually do, I gather the things I will journal with.  Today's Digital is by Liebshen Bloom, 

using a larger interleaved bible with very durable paper. I don't always use a digital, but when I do I enjoy the challenge of using someone else's gift along with mine to create something unique.

I did a lot of fussy cutting of the lilies and struggled with where and how to place the focal image of the Lion.  Then I had a great idea, print on sticker paper.  I didn't want a glossy finish, so I used "frosty clear." I wasn't sure what that stash find even was,

                  For the background, I cut the background digi in strips, inked the edges, and basket-wove the strips. I wanted it to look like the temple wall still standing in Jerusalem.

The lion here is printed on sticker paper

After Glueing down the background and highlighting the lilies, I did a little shading on them

I inked a bit of the bible paper behind the lion

and carefully placed the sticker.

And then I knew why it was called frosty white, and said, Oh No!!

I tried to blend ink onto the vinyl, and that made it worse—it actually took the inkjet ink off the sticker paper! I fussy cut a new lion image and thought to glue over it, but that looked terrible. So I just took a deep breath and lifted the sticker off the paper, hoping it wouldn't put a hole in the paper. It came close!

This is what my desk looked like at this point:

A mess, I kept losing things under the mini piles.

After 20 minutes, I had everything I wanted and felt good about this page. 

Lion Of The Tribe Of Judah - Breaks Every Chain!

Thanks for stopping by 

Ginny M

Resource Links: 

Liebshen Blom digital art

For your Inky worship

Journaling On The Way:

Facebook Group

Word Art Wednesday Challenge

Card Making Challenge

Christian Card Makers 

Card making, Journaling

 

Journaling the Names of Jesus, Light of the World

 Hello everyone, it is a rainy, warm day here in Central NY, perfect for spending a couple of hours Bible Journaling, meditating on the passage, and giving thanks for it!

My digital set came from the Etsy shop of  Liebshen Blom, the Link will be down below.

I will show you my finished page and a little leftover bonus.  Keep reading if you are interested in my process.

                                                        

                                                          Collage, Guache, and Glue!

The 2 page digi kit contains:

 

I love that there are almost always flowers in these kits, and I can print and use them many times over. The second page would be wonderful in a lot of applications, journal cover, journal page and today I made two cards with the journal page and flowers.

First step, 

Fussy cut everything I am going to use.

I actually enjoy fussy cutting, I find it very relaxing.

Second step:

For today's page I wanted a lot of opaque color, so I chose to use Guache and a wide brush'

Funny thing about Guache, the colors are awesome, but they feel funny. I painted a few layers waiting for each one to dry before adding the next color.

After playing with the placement of the lamp and scripture, I felt like the size ratio was off for this larger Bible. Thankfully, right on my desk was a piece of 6x6 paper I was saving for a card.

I fussy cut the skyline away and placed my lanter, I guached in, yellow and white for "the light. 

Here are the two cards I made from page two of the kit.

There are teeny tiny rhinestones in the flower on the first card and a glitter flake on the second card.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a wonderful day filled with His light!

Resource Links: 

Liebshen Blom digital art

For your Inky worship

Journaling On The Way:

Facebook Group

Word Art Wednesday Challenge

Card Making Challenge

Christian Card Makers 

Card making, Journaling

Spa Treatment for Some Golden Oldie Wood Mount Rubber Stamps

 I've been rubber stamping and card-making for a long time. I started in 1976, my sophomore year of high school, thanks to a wonderful, gifted art teacher. Finding rubber stamps back then was extremely difficult. I did learn how to make my own by cutting rubber blocks and erasers. The process was fun, although tedious, and occasionally bloody if you slipped with the knife you were carving with.  In the 80's, Rubber Stamp Madness magazine came out, and basement stamp companies were born.  By the early 90's, there was an explosion of rubber stamp companies, books, magazines, and MLM companies. By 1992, I was single, and my kids (5 and 9) were old enough that I could invest lots of time ( after they went to bed) in this art, I enjoyed the beautiful stamps and papers and began designing for companies and searching for images to help them grow. 

When the digital world mingled with card making I was there too and loved it. I still do, all of it!  

While the clear unmounted stamps rule the stamping universe right now ( and for a lot of good reasons), I still love my beautiful maple-mounted red rubber stamps. I even still buy them when I come across a great deal. About 10 years ago, I unmounted all of my wood-mounted stamps and stored them on special heavy-duty boards, categorized them, and put them in labeled drawers, and I totally regretted it a year later. Space was the problem. 

Space is no longer a problem and I am enjoying the mounted wood stamps once again ( I sold  most of the ones I unmounted).   Today I am going to show you  how to bring new life to old stamps.  If the red rubber stamps aren't stored properly they will dry out, crack and become useless.  My method is quick and easy, and cheap!

 My patient today is a nice men's kimono by ToyBox rubber stamps circa 2000

 I purchased it on eBay for a few dollars to add to my kimono stamps.

The rubber is ink-stained and very dry.

I wiped it down with a damp baby wipe to remove dust; the surface rubber was dry and unflexible. I then inked it up well using Versafine Clair ink.

Stamped the image on Neenah Solar White cardstock:

A poor image, to say the least.

Here is my Fix, which works 85% of the time. If the rubber is cracked, it won't be repairable.

Using fine-grit sandpaper (250-350 grit), I evenly sanded the stamp's surface. Don't bear down; just apply steady, even pressure. Keep at it until you feel the underlayer of rubber and it feels like new rubber. 

You can see I removed a decent amount of the top layer—this will not affect the image. 

I wipe the stamp down and give it an even coat of vegetable glycerin.

I let this sit on the stamp for a couple of hours or you can let sit overnight and then clean the stamp with your fav stamp cleaner.  You will get a result like this.

Dry the rubber, ink it up, and test it. If you don't have a great image, give it another round of sanding and glycerin.

This was my first stamp image after spa treatment.

I was very happy with this;

my total investment was 5 minutes.

 I did the rest of the stamps in the first picture in another 10 minutes; they needed minimal sanding.

I hope this helps you rescue some of your old favorites!

Ginny M