Love is...

I painted this in my bible planner journal. I sketched the heart and  did the lettering. I put portions of 1 Corinthians 13. I also sketched some music notes. I painted it with water coloring. I wanted drips. All month I have been trying to get drips that didn't look like mud. I finally succeeded. the key for me with to be patient. I did a couple of drips and let them completely dry before I started another drip. My heart also has some asemic writing. on it.

Fruit

This last week alone, John 15:2 showed up in two bible studies and on several different un-related facebook posts. When a verse keeps getting repeated like that, I am convinced that God is saying "MariLynn, MariLynn??? Are you listening?" 

After seeing it over 5 times, I decided to meditate, pray and journal it. 

I had a lot of fun watercoloring these grapes. I wrote the Fruit of the Spirit Galatians 5:22-23 on the individual grapes. I watercolored the scripture. I decided to watercolor the whole section of the Vine and the Branches. 

Here is a close up of the grapes. 

Fancy fold card

I made a fun fancy fold card this week. 

The example that I saw online was from my stamping friend Dawn's blog. 

Her card closed with a ribbon. I decided to make a belly band with a butterfly for my card. 

The butterfly on my belly band and also on the inside of the card is from

CUTplorations FLUTTER ZEN butterfly die

I added three little rhinestones to the body of the butterfly. 

If you look at the top panel on the front of the card you can see that it was die cut. I used 

CUTplorations Crazy Double Running Stitch  Rectangle Nesting Dies

 I used those dies to cut the inside of the card as well. 

I used scraps and the die cut butterfly along with used tea bags and pink floral decor.

Last page of the accordian part of the card has die cut from 

CUTplorations Praying for you.

To make sure the sentiment stands out I traced around it with a white gel pen. 

I am planning on making a few more of this style and making Valentines. 

If you would like to go to STAMPlorations you can use my discount code to get 20% off your order. 

Positive words challenge.

The MIX-ability challenge at SCS this week was to use Positive words. I decided to use the word CONTENT. 

If you look at the bottom right hand corner you can see the organic shapes that resulted from using plastic wrap and water color paint. 

I used STAMPlorations Blossom Like a Butterfly 

I put crystal glaze on the body of the butterfly. It added dimension and shine. It is hard to see but I tried to show it in this close up.

STAMPlorations Stencil Challenge - Butterfly tag

First 2 photos are from a tag I made at the beginning of the month. 

You can still join us at STAMPlorations for the Stencil Challenge. I made a second tag to go with the one I shared the other day. Since my word for the year is TESTIFY/TESTIMONY I had to make the second tag to cover that second word. I had to add a butterfly to the first tag even when I thought I was done so I had to add some to this one as well. I used the same stencil to make the background. ARTplorations Onion in Raws. I also used STAMPlorations Butterfly Row. 

I hope this inspired you to created. Do you have a "word" for your year?

Singing Praises Romans 8:28

When I saw this set called Singing Praises by Sweet 'n Sassy stamps, I knew I wanted it. My friend Lee Ann gave me a gift certificate making it possible for me to get it. Thank you sweet friend. I decided to use it in my bible and also in my bible planner/journal that my sweet friend Stephanie gave me. Thanks Stephanie. I am so blessed to have great friends. 

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Both of my pages are for Romans 8:28

I stamped the bird with the blossoms with black stazon ink.

I watercolored the bird and flowers.  Part of me wishes I had just stopped right here, but I didn't.

I sketched the scripture in pencil.

 I went over the lettering with my sharpie pen. 

 I was thinking that it would be neat to add a purple sky. Well, it didn't turn out how I had it in my mind. I did plastic wrap to try and make the paint have different shades. 

After doing the plastic wrap, some of the paint got on the bird.  

And it bled through to the back side where the purple was. 

I have to admit I tried several things to try and make this better. I tried added more water and blotting it to try and make it lighter, but everything I did only made it "messier" So I finally gave up and decided to embrace the mess. I think having a "mistake" or less than perfect page keeps me humble and allows me to have a page that can hopefully encourage others who are hesitant to create in their bibles because of fear of making mistakes.  

In my planner/journal, I stamped the other bird from the set. I did the lettering then,  I masked him and did a watercolor plastic wrap background.

How it looked when I removed the mask.

 The finished page. 

Jesus is the missing peace

I have a lot of people ask me how I decide to make my pages in my bible. I thought I would try to go from start to finish with what I did to make my page today. 

I love the music of JJ Heller. She posted this on Facebook today about her song Missing Peace

I loved the idea that Jesus is the missing peace. I had an idea in my mind about a puzzle that was missing a piece. I wanted to have an image for peace. I started thinking that I wanted a dove. 

I used Pinterest and typed in the seach box. Dove/ Peace. It gave me several images for inspiration. I liked the one the arrow is pointing too. 

You can see in this photo that I had already sketched a puzzle. (I used Pinterest and searched puzzle images to inspire my sketch.)

My sketch was just on a piece of typing paper. 

You can see that it is really rough. 

I used a sharpie marker on the dove to make it dark enough so you could see it through the page in my bible.  I roughly cut it out so it would fit in the bible. 

I traced the dove and sketched a cross behind it. 

Then I lightly sketched the puzzle pieces.  

Next step was to  make the "missing" piece. It made sense to me to pick one of the bottom pieces, but I could have picked any of them to trace. 

I decided to pick the bottom center piece. I traced it with a piece of the typing paper. I cut that traced piece out and then laid it back down on the page and 

My next step was to go over all the lines with a non bleeding sharpie thin marker. I had to get my tip going after working with some of my mixed media material. You can see the scribble in previous photo to get it going. 

I used water colors to color my page. When it came time to write my sentiment, I used the website called Fontsquirrel. I picked the Euphoria Script font. 

When it opens there is a choice for "TEST DRIVE" 

I then type in the box the phrase I want to copy.

You can only type in a couple of words at a time, but that works for me. I just type them in and try to sketch them. I start by sketching them on a scratch piece of paper then I try to do it in my bible. I do this with pencil first and then I go over it with a the thin Sharpie marker. 

Philippians 4: 4-7

2 butterfly projects

I have 2 projects to share with you today.
The first is an journaled page in my bible.

I used STAMPlorations Butterfly Row  and Typewriter Alpha Blocks to make this page. I used an envelope that was red and gold. I journaled 5:16. making the most of every opportunity.  (NIV) King James version that I memorized as a child says "redeeming the time".  I was thinking about how time eventually runs out. so does our amount of opportunities to love others, tell them about Jesus, to help other people.  With a New Year starting how quickly it seems that last year passed, along with it the opportunities. I know I missed a lot of opportunities being caught up in my own little world. I am hoping to do better this coming year.

My second project is for the Splitcoast Stampers Mixability challenge. The challenge this week was to have a white focal point.  I took a monotype that I made the other day with ARTplorations  Ethnic Organic One and ARTplorations Fairytale Forest stencils and acrylic paint. I traced and painted a white butterfly on this print.

I stamped flowers from STAMPlorations Folk Flowers. I colored them with markers. I had a hard time leaving the butterfly completely white. So I added the scales.

I also added glitter to the butterfly. I used typewrite alpha blocks to add sentiment.

I thought the back of this print was almost as pretty as the front of the print so I decided to just make this a postcard. Praying that God will show me the opportunity to mail this to someone to bring a smile to their face. 

If you would like to add any of the STAMPlorations products that I used on my projects you can use my discount code to get 20% off your order. Happy Creating

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. STAMPloration Stencil challenge today. I made a new tag page to add to the tag Bible art journal I started last year. For the past several years I have had a “word “ for the year that I first pray and ask God to show me what the word should be and then focus on that word throughout the year. This year my word is actually 2 related word ds testimony/testify.  I wrote “testify” on my tag.   I am going to writeTestimony on my next tag. The background on the tag is a mono print made with ARTplorations Onion in raws 
I had my tag finished or so I thought. I even had it photographed and put it in this post. But after a couple of days of looking at it I realized it wasn't finished. It needed a butterfly. So I added a butterfly with a little bit of glitter on the body. Now it is done. I used STAMPlorations Butterfly Row.

• You  can link up an unlimited number of projects -- any type of project is welcome as long as a stencil is used -- but each project must be in its own blog post.
• Use of stencil (any brand) is a requirement.
• Non-STAMPlorations products are OK 
• No sneak peek project entries; full project photo must be displayed on blog post in order to qualify for the prizes.
• To qualify for the prize, you must display challenge graphic and link back to the challenge post (blogs only) 

Prizes: $15 gift certificate to winner / $10 gift certificate to runner up / $5 gift certificate to 3 randomly picked entries